Mass Effect: Recollection
by Nathan Dayne
Summary: Nathan West has spent two years mourning the death of his family as a result of a burglary gone wrong. When he is propelled into the Mass Effect universe for reasons he can't explain, he comes to find out that for him, this might not just be a game after all. SI Story, formerly Mass Effect: The Hunt *ON HIATUS*
1. Chapter 1

_**a/n: Welcome to my first SI story, I hope you enjoy it. Any stances or ideas presented in this story are not meant to offend or be insulting so please bear with me. This is meant to be a introduction chapter, introducing how I got into the Mass Effect universe. It may be a little dense on detail, but again do bear with me.**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect, or any of its characters, except of course my own**_

**Chapter 1: Prologue**

That day started off as any normal day, with me walking on to the campus of my community college. Who am I referring to as "me", why I am Nathan West, your pretty average guy about to be thrown in to the universe of Mass Effect. As custom dictates before I get thrown into Mass Effect, you the reader need to know more about me. I'm 20, and you know with a pretty average life, decent grades in high school got me here in community college, the human cespool of every different kind of person you could imagine, from your future Harvard graduate to your lowest of the low pot head. I myself am in the middle, of about everyone one of these spectrums. Sure I got some muscle, but i'm not totally ripped, and i'm pretty smart, i'm actually pretty good at chess, and what not, but what i'm real good at is strategy. When other people see a problem they see 1, maybe 2 solutions, but when I see the problem, I can think up 5 or 6 solutions. My teachers called it innovative, and my parents called it a gift, my parents.

Its been almost two years i've had without them. Two years ago, my parents died in a robbery gone wrong. I was spending the night at a friends at the time, but from the police report I figured out that the robbers didn't get out of there cleanly, which I expected as much. My dad was a marine sniper back in Vietnam, so I suspect that they didn't get out of there without a few broken bones. But damn does it make you grow up fast, I can't tell you how much reality slapped me in the face. When I went back to the house, I told myself that I would find who was responsible, and end them despite the consequences. My mom would have told to forget and forgive, but i'm like my dad, i'm a fighter, not a lover.

I remember my dad used to take me on hunting trips, and not on your normal ones, these were intense. Staying in the wilderness for days at a time hunting big game, elk mostly, but nothing teaches you how to use a gun better, when your confronted with a bear at age 13. It was then that my dad noticed that I had a knack for marksmanship. Mostly for a rifle, but I was also I was also good with throwing his tomahawk which he carried just in case on hunting trips. Over time he entered me in some competitions, and over time he saw that I always placed in them, so he placed me in even more. By the time of his death I usually placed 1st in competition that even had some older veterans in it. They told me I was a prodigy in the sport, but i'd just tell them it was like riding a bike, once you learn you never forget.

So know that i've caught you up lets begin this story.

* * *

><p>The day begins as most days do for me, walking onto campus while in a conversation with my long-time friend and roomate of 2 years, Matt, and ironically enough that day the particular topic was Mass Effect.<p>

"Ok your saying that you would rather go out with a Quarian, rather than an Asari?" Matt asked me

"I'm not saying that an Asari wouldn't be good, i'm just saying that i'm just intrigued about the whole face under the mask mystery, plus their accent's are hot" I reply

"hmm solid point" Matt answers "Oh yeah, i'm going to the movies with some friends tonight, you wanna come?"

Sighing I say "No, I can't man its the 21st"

Matt looks at me "Bro, it's been 2 years, your parents wouldn't want you to dwell on this, they would want you to move on"

"I know, I know, I promise this will be the last year"

"Alright man, just be careful, you know the cops don't like it when they see somebody bring a rifle and a tomahawk into a cemetary" Matt laughs

"I wouldn't blame them, lets go we gotta get to class" I say

"Fuck, I hate Calculus"

...

I park my car on the street at the bottom of the hill. I reach into my backseat for the case that my dad's old rifle is in, and the tomahawk as well. I get out of my car and start walking up, where the cemetary is situated on top ot the hill.I enter the cemetary and walk through the many graves towards my parents plot which is situated in the middle of the cemetary. As I walk, it reminds me of their funeral procession through the cemetary, since I was one of the ones carrying my dads casket.

As I reach the graves, I see Officer Johnson waiting for me.

"How you doing son?" he asks as I walk up to him

"Alright sir, you need to check my dad's rifle again"

"Yep, I know its empty, but you know the protocols for this"

"I understand" I replied as I handed him the rifle

He looks it over and hands it back over to me. He then looks at me.

"Cavity search?" I ask

"Yeah"

We do the cavity search and he gives me the all clear. He turns to me.

"You know, your starting to look like your dad, hell even more so with that rifle."

"I get that alot" I reply

"I bet you do, your father was a good man, you planning on following in his footsteps?" he asks

"You know that with my dad, that the marines was always an option for me" I give a little smirk

"I guess it was, well I dont want to keep you waiting so i'll be off" he said as he started to turn away "Take care of yourself Nathan"

"You to sir" I say as he walks off

I sit down next to the grave and pull the tomahawk out and place it next to the grave. Then I pull out my rifle and place it down, grabbing the cleaner and cleaning cloth as well. Lastly I take his old dogtags from my pocket and put it around my neck. Then I start field stripping the gun.

"Hey dad, its me Nathan, just wanted to let you know i'm doing fine. I got a 3.5 this semester at the college, and i'm due to get a pay raise at work soon so thats good. The apartments doing well to, me and Matt are holding up on rent. Officer Johnson hasn't found any leads on your case yet, but he says he'll keep trying. I know when he does find something, I'll do you and mom proud though. I feel a little lost dad, I mean i'm alright right now, but I don't know where I want to go with my life. Officer Johnson says that i'd be a good marine like you but I still dont know. I wish you were here to help me, I miss you and mom"

I started to pack everything up as the sun started to set. "Say hi to mom for me alright"

I finished packing and started to walk away, but some glittered in the sunlight. I turned to see a small object laying on top of my mom's grave. I walked over and picked it up. I looked at it realizing that the glittering wasn't from the sun, but that it was self-illuminating, glowing a reddish-orange color. I looked at it in detail, and it kind of looked like a miniature model of Omega from Mass Effect.

"Wow I play to much Mass Effect" I thought out loud

When I said that it started radiating even more, and got to a point where it was so bright I had to cover my eyes. The last thing I remember was my eyes rolling to the back of my head before I blacked out.

* * *

><p>My eyes sprung open, and as I looked around I realized that I was on a bench. I sat up and saw that I still had my bag with me, but as I looked around, I saw that this wasn't my city. Everything was mechanical, but that wasn't even the weirdest part.<p>

'Those aren't humans' I thought

I looked around to see many more lifeforms walking around. As I looked close I realized something.

'No that can't be, that looks exactly like a Turian, and over there was an Asari, and down the other way was a Salarian'

Amazed by this I looked around only to see what looked like a datapad on top of my bag. I reached over and grabbed it.

I was amazed by what it said

"Hello , as you probably already know your in the Mass Effect Universe, specifically Omega, circa 2181. Now I know your wondering why your here. It is in the best interest for buisness purposes that you make sure that Commander Shepard defeats the Reapers. I chose you because of your knowledge of this universe as well as the fact that you are an expert marksman. Now I had other options for this job, so your going to have to prove yourself. In your bag i've provided you with some essentials, an Omni-Tool, and an Avenger I sniper rifle. The rest is up to you. I'll contact you in 7 days, given the fact if your still alive. Good Luck

P.S- Oh yes here is a little incentive for you to try harder, I know who killed your parents, and if you complete this mission for me the information is yours"

I looked at the data-pad with shock "What the hell!"


	2. Chapter 2

_**a/n: I wanted to thank CuHnadian for my first review, and all you people who followed and favorited my story, so here is the next chapter**_

**Chapter 2: Day One**

As I looked at the datapad, I was rushed with a flurry of emotions, mostly shock, some fear, but also a little bit of pure excitement. After all I was in Mass Effect, and by the look of the background info I was given I was 25 years old. I still had the same name as well as the same birthday despite the year being changed from 1992 to 2156. But there was one last piece of information that pissed me off, the datapad told me that my parents had died in the raid on Mindoir in 2170. Looking up from the datapad he saw his bag. He walked over to it and opened it, seeing an Avenger I sniper rifle in place of his dad's old one. As he picked it up, it extended from its collasped form to its full length. As he examined it something felt unnusual about it. Despite this sniper rifle being almost 200 years older than his dads, it had the same feel to it. The butt of the gun was the right length, as he looked through the scope, he saw that it was calibrated to what his dad would usually had it at, and it had a similiar looking bipod attached to the barrel as well.

He put down the rifle and picked up what looked like a small battery of some sorts. As he grasped it with his hand, it stuck and the display for the omni-tool showed up on his arm. It looked like a simple touch screen display that you would see on a phone. It had the basic web link, as well as ones linking to a bank account, a map, and something that suprised him.

'Mass Effect Wiki, what the hell'

He pressed it, and as he did a screen popped up asking for a authorization name and code. He didn't have time to figure out what that meant so he quit out and looked at his bank account.

'0 credits, wow this guys an asshole'

He turned off the omni-tool, and saw that there was one more thing in the bag. He pulled it out to see that it was his dads tomahawk. He spinned it around in his hands once and put it back in his bag. He zipped up the bag and sat back on the bench trying to assess his situation.

'Alright what do I know? I know its 2181 supposedly, which means I have 2 year to go before even the Eden Prime event, or meeting Shepard, so I have a lot of time to waste'

'I know that i'm on Omega, the dirtiest, filthiest, corruptest hellhole in the galaxy... suprising that I haven't got jumped yet'

'And I know that I have no money to my name... unless?'

He reached down into his pockets and pulled his smartphone.

'This has got to be worth something' he thought as he turned it on seeing he had no bars 'Ha, I guess Verizon can't hear me now...Good'

Nathan turned on his omni-tool going to the map link.

'Looks like the nearest tech store is 2 blocks down'

He picked up his bag and started walking. As he walked he looked at his surroundings.

'Bioware did this place a justice, its looks like crap in reality'

As he walked he noticed that he was wearing his same clothes. He didn't mind though, it didn't seem like anyone was looking at him differently because of it.

'Guess I look like the majority of poverty stricken humans on this planet...lucky me' he thought as he entered the tech store

As he suspected the clerk was Salarian. He wasn't being predigious, he was just being realistic. When was the last time you ever saw a Turian, or an Elcor working a tech store.

"Hello sir, how may I assist?" said the clerk

Nathan stuttered a little bit "Uh...hi...I'd like to sell this...antique... piece of human technology" he said as he handed the Salarian the phone

The clerk examined it carefully, and looked back up at him "Sir... this is quite the amazing piece you got here... nearly 200 years old and in perfect condition... and it still works I might add. What would you like for it?" he asked

"Um make me an offer" Nathan replied

"50,000 credits"

Nathan thought for a second. He had some experience at bargaining at flea markets before, and he figured that this is almost the same idea, so he tried his luck.

"I would feel much more comfortable at 100,000 credits"

The clerk shocked by this replied "Thats outrageous, its not nearly as much"

'Time to pull off my inner Pawn Stars knowledge'

"But sir you must consider this has sentimental value to me, and when are you ever going to see something like this again"

The clerk sat their for a bit "How about I raise to 75,000 credits...my final offer"

"Deal" Nathan replied as the clerk transferred the credits to Nathans omni-tool

Nathan walked out of they tech store, looking at the rise in his bank account. Distracted by this he ran into a group of Batarians.

Nathan,realizing his mistake looked up "Im sorry sir, my mistake" and tried to walk passed them but they blocked him

The Batarian who had been run into , looked up and said "You know human, there's a passing fee on this street, pay up"

Nathan lied"I don't have any money"

Right as Nathan said that, a Batarian reached for his bag. Nathan struggled with him, but was pushed down by another thug. The thug opened the bag "Oh what do we have here" he said as he grabbed the tomahawk

"Give it back thats mine" Nathan replied as he tried to get up

The thug pushed him back down "Antique human weaponry runs for a high price on the black market, I think this will make for a great payment, have a nice day" the thug low blowed Nathan, as they walked away

"What about the rifle sir" said one of the thugs

"Leave it, its a piece of crap"

Nathan fell on the ground with a thud, and nursed his injured parts, as well as his pride. After the thugs had left, he felt a hand pull him up. He looked up to see a Turian pick him up.

"Are you alright son?" he asked

"I'm alright, nothing hurt but my pride, who were those guys?"

The Turian answered "That was a local street gang, bunch of punks if you ask me. They've been robbing and killing innocent people for months now, suprised they didn't kill you. Half the people here wouldn't mind them dead"

Nathan knew he couldn't just let those thugs get awat with what they had done to these people, as well as the fact that they had his dad's tomahawk, the last real think linking him to his universe. He didn't know how he would do it but he would have to get it back.

"You wouldn't know where they hang out, would you?"

"They hang out about a block down from here in a large warehouse, why are you going to do something?"

Nathan lied "No, just asking so I can stay as far away from them as possible"

Nathan fared him a good bye as he picked up his bag and walked down the street. He walked in the direction for about a block until he saw the warehouse in mention. He looked over it and thought.

'Alright the complex is surrounded by slightly taller apartment complexs on each side, and the complex itself has multiple windows' he thought as he looked down at his bag and smiled

The alleyway leading to the buiding was guarded by thugs so Nathan knew that was the main entrance. He made his way casually past the guards into one of the apartment complexes. He made his way to the roof which was mostly clear of debris. He walked to the edge to see a perfect line of sight into the building. He saw his tomahawk on a table near the middle.

'At least 10 thugs, if I did it now, I would give myself off to easily, it's to bright outside, plus the shots also going to give me away. If I did it at night though, they wouldn't see me, hmmm I also see what looks like a power node. If I shoot that, the power goes bye bye. Hmm what would I need to pull this off, i'd need a silencer, and a thermal scope. I'm guessing since its 2 centuries ahead of my time that they have mods for that'

With that Nathan left checking his map for the nearest gun shop.

...

It was dark out now as Nathan reached the roof of the apartment complex. The sniper mods had cost him a good 3000 credits, but for him it was worth it. Also at the gun store he got to use the firing range, and realized that the time the Avenger I took to cool down was almost identical to how long it took him to reload his gun.

He walked up to the edge, seeing the exact scene in the warehouse as when he left. He took the Avenger out of the bag and felt it extend to its full form. He placed its bipod lightly on the edge of the roof and aimed for his first shot which was to be the power node.

"Please whoever may be up there forgive for what i'm about to do" Nathan said as he pulled the trigger

**Garvak Tharkian**

**Outside Warehouse complex**

**Same time**

Garvak's 10 man team had been sent on a mission to take out this minor street gang, before it grew enough power to threaten the power of his boss. As his team made way to the warehouse he took a head count, 5 Turians including himself,3 Batarians, and 2 Humans. As they reached the building they saw the lights go out.

One of the Turians spoke up "Garvak, do you think they know were here?"

"Impossible" he replied back "We hid all the guard bodies"

They made their way to the door. Before they were going to break it open they heard screming and multiple thud's on the floor. As the thud's stopped they broke in, after a minute they managed to get the lights back on, only to see all the Batarians dead and a single human standing there armed with a sniper rifle looking at an object on the table.

Garvak knew this could be one of the thugs, because the gang was exclusively Batarian. The human looked at him.

"Drop the weapon" Garvak said as he and his team aimed theirs at him

The human dropped the rifle and spoke "I'm only here for the tomahawk, you can take the warehouse"

Garvak looked at him "Who killed all these Batarians?"

"I did"

Garvak looked at the corspes to see that each had one entry wound, each fatal. He turned on his omni-tool and spoke "Boss we secured the warehouse, the Batarians were dead before we even entered"

"Well who killed him"answered a feminine voice on the othere side

"A human said he sniped them"

"Proof?"

"All the bodies have one entry hole in them, what should we do with him"

"Is he working with anyone?"

Garvak turned to the human "Are you?"

"No" he answered

"No, ma'am" Garvak answered

"Bring him to me" was the reply as the conversation cut out

Right before anything could be said one last Batarian came out of nowhere rushing the group. Before anyone could lift there weapon, Garvak saw the archaeic human weapon collide with the Batarians skull. He looked to the human who had thrown the weapon, was now picking up his rifle.

"Its your lucky day, human"

"Why is that, he replied"

"You get to meet the Queen of Omega herself"


	3. Chapter 3

_**a/n: Ok, I wasn't expecting my story to get 8 reviews, none the less in a couple of days, so before this chapter begins I want to thank everyone for reviewing, following, and favoriting. Now before you get bored of my ramblings lets begin chapter 3**_

**Chapter 3: Induction**

'Shit, how the hell did I pull that off, that was a fucking miracle to say the least. Must have been the adrenaline, but i've felt adrenaline before and that was something else entirely'

Nathan sat in a skycar blindfolded. For the second time today he had a flurry of emotions such as excitement, confusion, and most of all down right fear. Unknown to the 3 turians "escorting" him to a meeting with their boss, Nathan knew exactly where he was going, and exactly who he was meeting, and it scared him to a point near shitting his pants. He was on his way to the nightclub Afterlife, to meet with the self-made Queen of Omega, Aria T'Loak, the most powerful gang lord on this hellhole of a planet.

Nathan thought 'Ok ok ok Nate, you'll get through this you gotta stay calm, your records here are clean, there is no reason Aria would want you dead so you don't need to worry. Just keep your story straight and you'll be fine'

The skycar stopped and Nathan was stood up and guided through what was presumably Afterlife. Nathan kept going through options that would get him out of certain death. But everyone ended with him being shot, killed, or thrown out of an airlock. Before he could think of anything else he felt himself being sat on a couch. His blindfold was then taken off, revealing the purple asari across from him, tinkering around with his sniper rifle.

"Nathaniel West, human, born 2156 on Mindoir. Do you know who I am?" she asked

'Well now or never, time to wing it'

"I'm going to pressume your Aria T'Loak, biggest gang lord on Omega" he responded

"Looks like you did your homework" she said with no changing emotion in her face "Why are you on my planet?"

'Where's an alibi, when you need one'

"Simple really, I need money, I heard this is the place you can get some"

Aria turned towards him "True, doesn't explain why you killed 10 batarians without a motive though"

"They took something from me, as well as did harm on the community, so I did the community a service" Nathan leaned forward

'Shit that was probably some of her gang, I am so fucking screwed!'

"Seems alot to go through for such an old object" Aria held up the tomahawk, examining it

"It has setimental value to me, and because of its low velocity, its useful for avoiding shields in close quarters. I apoligize if I was interuptting any operation of yours"

'Fuck like apoligizing is going to do anything. I'm gonna die'

"You have no need to apoligize West, you see you removed a thorn out of my side using this piece of crap" Aria held up his sniper rifle "all by yourself"

'I was not expecting that'

"What does that mean for me?"said Nathan cautiously

Aria pulled a pistol from her pocket

'Oh crap, oh crap'

She tossed the pistol to him and nodded over to a nearby window.

'I don't remember a window being there, then again this is a real universe, not a game which has limited space'

"Hit that streetlight" she said pointing to a streetlight that was at least 50 feet away

Nathan aimed at the streetlight and summoned all the knowledge he had learned from his dad.

'The targets at least 50 feet away, slight breeze to the right. Place the gun slightly to the right to account for the breeze, and an inch above it to account for decleration'

Nathan fired the pistol, and after what felt like minutes he heard the distinct sound of the round hitting the glass and the light going out.

Nathan gave a sigh as he handed the pistol back to Aria. Aria in turn handed it back to Nathan "West, I have a proposal that you'd be an idiot not to take"

Nathan put the pistol in his pocket and turned back to Aria "I'm listening"

"My gang is in need of people with your accuracy with a gun. My proposition is, you do whatever I ask you to do, and I provide you a healthy sum of credits for payment for said actions. The more sucess you give me, the more credits I give you. Am I understood?"

'Well this is probably going to kill me, but so will any other form of employment on this planet, so i'll go for it'

"Yes, ma'am" Nathan replied

"Smart boy" Aria gave a little smirk "Do you have a place to live, I prefer my 'employees' to be as healthy as possible"

"No ma'am today was my first day on Omega, and these are my only possessions"

"Good, no I wont have to waste man power to relocate you to your new quarters" Aria returned to her blank expression as she gave Nathan back his things "The hotel down the street,room 827. Have your omni-tool on at all times, we'll call you when we need you"

...

Nathan walked into the room, which was suprisingly bigger than he imagined despite the circumstances. Though the room itself was spartan in design it felt roomy, a bed, bathroom, and a mini kitchen. As he looked around, he check the clock which read 0400 Galactic Standard Time.

'Hell, its 4 in the morning. Fuck its been one hell of a day'

Nathan threw his things on the floor and collasped on to the comfy bed. He lay there for a moment, thinking about how he had even pulled off those feats of marksmanship. He was dumbfounded by that, he was by all means a good shot, but he had pulled off something freaky, thats all he knew.

...

_"Run the drill again"_

_"But Dad i've ran it 10 times, I want to go play with the other kids"_

_"Trust me son, this will come in handy when the time comes."_

_"Dad, you know I don't start fights, why do I need to learn fighting anyway?"_

_"So if a fight ever arises, you'll win"_

_..._

Nathan woke up to his omni-tools alarm going off, it was 10 in the morning. He got out of bed, and popped his back as he walked to the window. He looked down at the street below which was already bustling with people walking to wherever they need be. He walked over to his door to see a fresh set of clothes waiting for him. On top of the stack was a note.

_"I don't like my employees looking like crap -Aria"_

Nathan gave a slight smirk at the sarcasm and grabbed the clothes on his way to the bathroom. Turning on the shower he stepped in thinking about everything that had transpired thus far. He was somehow transported to the universe of Mass Effect, by someone he didn't even know, that supposedly knew who killed his parents, and would give the information to him for helping Shepard through till the end.

He looked down at himself, he was somewhat fit, but could use some work. If he wanted to be given the chance to join Shepards team in two years, much less survive the next two years in Aria's gang he would need to exercise a hell of a lot. He remembered that his dad was in peak physical condition, able to run at least 6 miles straight each day. He'd have to build up to that over time. But at least what he lacked in strength, he gained in technique. Being the tough marine father figure his dad was, his dad taught him a lot about martial arts and fighting. Being a black belt in karate always helps as well.

Nathan exited the shower and got some clothes on. He then thought of the inevitableness of him being in this position. Being in a gang meant killing people, and he had had a massive amount of emotional trauma killing those thugs. The inevitability of it was that to get to where he needed to be he needed to kill. If he didn't he would be killed by Aria's people, or more likely some other gang.

Now fully dressed, he noticed his stomach grumbling, so he left his room to get some food. Suprisingly Nathan hadn't noticed the food court in the lobby of the hotel when he had arrived. As he walked around he was amazed by the amount of cuisine they actually had there. Considering that Omega was the slum of the galaxy he hadn't expected more than a few choices. But there in front of him were a million different types of cuisine from each different species alone.

Deciding to play it simple, Nathan got a burger which suprisingly was still a major part of human cuisine after 200 years. Walking towards a table he smiled realizing that he hadn't seen a McDonald's logo anywhere. Finally humans had realized how incredibly digusting their food was. He sat down and devoured his burger.

After finishing his burger another unsettling thing hit his mind. Not only would he have to kill people in general, he would have to become better at it. His marksmanship was his only worthwhile attribute, so he would have to grow that enough to impress Shepard.

Nathan gave a dark smirk. He would have to become the human equivalent of Garrus. So much thing to do, in a relatively short time. It was like a hunt, either kill or be killed.

His thoughts were interuptted by an alert from his omni-tool. It was a message from Aria. He opened it.

_Your needed. Garvak will pick you up at your hotel in 30 minutes, have your equipment ready. -Aria_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Declaration**

Nathan sat on a bench outside his hotel waiting to be picked up by Aria's second-in-command, which Nathan had come to find out was a Turian by the name of Garvak. As he waited there, he tried to menatally prepare himself for what he was probably going to do. Sure he had hunted animals before for sport, but this was a entirely different thing. But he had to do it, if he had any chance of getting back to his universe he would have to suck it up.

A skycar parked in front of him on the street, and a Turian who Nathan identified as Garvak got out. He wore a dark green armor which Nathan recognized was evident of all members of Aria's gang. Garvak waved him over, and they both got in the car. As Nathan sat down he noticed there were two others in the car, one Salarian and one Krogan, both of which were also decked out in similiar green armor, and in the middle of a heated arguement.

Nathan knew that there was bad blood between the two species and could only figure that it was over the genophage. But the thing that Nathan couldn't get over was the massive size of the Krogan. Sure you could suppose they were large beings when you looked at them through a tv screen but when its face to face it was a whole other deal. Nathan's staring was so evident, that the Krogan noticed.

"What are you looking at human" The Krogan spat

The question caught him off guard "Uhhh, nothing"

The Krogan brushed it off and turned to Garvak "This is the human Aria recruited, he looks weak"

What Nathan initially took as an insult, eventually dawned on him as a fact. Even though Krogan saw every species weak to some standard, Nathan was muscular, but lean as well.

'Damn, I really need to work out' he thought

"Dont worry Kravik, what this one losses in strength, he makes it up in marksmanship" Garvak replied

"I hope so, we may be neutral with the Blood Pack right now, but I don't trust them" Kravik replied

Garvak nodded and turned towards Nathan " Oh I'm sorry where's my manners, I haven't properly introduced myself, I'm Garvak Tharkian, that's Kravik, and the Salarian is Salus Jol"

Nathan gave a nod and turned back to Garvak " Your going to be providing overwatch on a deal between us and the Blood Pack. I don't expect that you'll have to intervene, but this will be a good judge of your character for me to see"

Nathan had a gut feeling that this wasn't going to end well. He knew a big majority of the Blood Pack was Vorcha, and along with being butt ugly, Vorcha were agressive as hell. If he was to be providing overwatch for this deal, he would have to have a good elevated position.

He turned to Garvak and asked "Where is this meeting held?"

Garvak turned to him and said "An alleyway behind a group of abandoned projects on level 20. Plenty of good spots you could use"

Nathan had forgotton that Omega was divided throughout different levels. But his main concern was his strategy, and for this he compared to his experience hunting. He figured that the projects were multi-leveled structures, that would give him the elevation he needed. Problem was the projects were abandoned, easy for them to see a sniper sitting there in the open on a window ledge. It was also mid-day so he worried about the glare that his scope would make as well.

'All these variables and I haven't seen the damn place yet' he thought as the skycar stopped

"Alright right West, you got 10 minutes until this meeting starts. Find a good position overlooking the alleyway" Garvak told him as he stepped out of the car "Keep in touch through your omni-tool and tell me when your in position, oh and stay stealthy, we don't exactly want the Blood Pack to know we have a sniper on them"

With that the car sped off and Nathan examined his surroundings. It was pretty much like the description Garvak had given him. A block of abandoned projects with a alleyway in the middle. From the looks of it his best bet was the project that was bordering the end of the alleyway. The sidewalk was somewhat crowded as he walked towards the building, but he did notice a group of about 5 Blood Pack walking toward the meeting location. Nathan, though somewhat nervous knew that he wasn't wearing anything that would suggest to them that he was affliated with a gang. In fact all he had for protection was a small shield generator that Garvak had given him.

'Really need to invest in some armor' he though as he walked into the abandoned building. Before going any further he grabbed some dirt off the ground and rubbed it against his scope. With the problem of lens glare gone he made his way to the second floor where he decided to set up. He chose this because most animals or in this case beings would look either on the ground or higher up for an attacker. This spot provided a slight elavation advantage as well as not being to obvious.

He looked out the window frame over the alleyway. The lessons his dad had taught him about hunting came back to him. He realized that before he set up he need some sort of perimeter alarm if shit hit the fan. Usually this didn't have to be to fancy, in the woods it could be as simple as twigs or old leaves. Something that would make a sound out of the usual. Nathan fufilled this with garbage he found laying around the level. He threw it down over all the entrances to the level, then made his way to his spot. His spot a partially boarded up window gave him full visibility of the alleyway, but was enough to make him at least partially hidden.

He laid his Avenger on the window seal and opened his omni-tool.

"Garvak, i'm in position"

A little static and then came his reply "Affirmative approaching alleyway now"

Nathan lifted his rifle and looked through its scope. Below him he could see the 3 approaching the middle of the alleyway. On the other end he saw a krogan decked in the Blood Pack's signiture red armor, followed by 2 vorcha dressed in the same way.

It was then that Nathan noticed something. He had seen 5 blood pack members enter the area and only 3 had appeared. He opened his comm

"Garvak, the Blood Pack brought 5 people into this area, there are 2 vorcha missing"

"Hmmm odd, check the buildings for the missing 2"

"On it"

Nathan scanned the area and found the 2 vorcha on either side of the alleyway on higher levels then he was. They both carried sniper rifles.

"Got those 2 vorcha they're snipers"

"Do they see you" Garvak replied

"Nope"

"Alright keep an eye on them"

Nathan heard Kravik through the comm " I don't like this, why would they have snipers on us if this is just a deal?"

Garvak replied "Why would we have a sniper on them?"

Kravik grunted as the meeting began.

From what Nathan could decipher from the meeting they were dealing in red sand. As they conversed below he saw movement up in the buildings. He looked to see 5 extra vorcha sneaking around in the lower levels of the buildings. Just as he was about to open his omni-tool, he heard a snap in the room behind him. He knew that someone was sneaking into the building and that if he opened his comm up it would give away his position.

He slowly got up and unstrapped his tomahawk from his belt, as he made his way to the door. He peeked around it to see a lone vorcha holding a assualt rifle. Then the realization hit him, this wasn't a deal, this was an ambush. Unless he took out this vorcha quickly, and informed Garvak they would all be dead.

As the vorcha approached, Nathan crouched down behind the door. The Vorcha had superior firepower, but he had the element of suprise. If he reacted fast enough he would catch the vorcha before he would fire his weapon. Nathan didn't like having to do this but Garvak, and the rest of the team depended on him, and if they died, he'd be dead soon after.

The vorcha entered the room. If their looks didn't kill you the stench would. Harnessing all the martial arts knowledge he had learned from his youth Nathan quickly disarmed the Vorcha, who gave a little noise of suprise before Nathan turned him around, bypassing his shield and plunging the tomahawk into his skull.

The impact splattered blood onto his face. The lifeless body fell to the ground, and Nathan noticed an exrusciating pain in his thigh. He looked to see a blade lodged into his leg. The vorcha had plundged it into him right before he died. Nathan felt the burn of it, but knew it wasn't major, he opened the comm as he limped to his rifle.

"Garvak its an ambush!" he yelled as he picked the rifle

...

"Garm what the hell is this"exclaimed Garvak to the Blood Pack Krogan

Garm lifted a pistol aiming at Garvak "This is a message"

But before he could fire, two shots wrung out, and a vorcha sniper who had been hiding in one of the buildings fell lifelessly into the alleyway. This gave Kravik the chance to slam into Garm. Garvak took cover, but as he looked up he saw Salus get sniped . He ran over to the now lifeless Salarian and looked up to shoot the sniper. As he looked up he saw the vorcha's head blow off. He dragged the body to cover, and started to fire on the Blood Pack. He took 2 down, but it seemed as if they kept on coming. He looked to see that Garm had retreated but had left Kravik injured. A few more sniper shots wrang out and a few vorcha fell to the ground.

Garvak knew that this fight would be un-winnable with the massive number of Blood Pack members coming in. He turned to Kravik who was holding off a few of the Vorcha, one hand clenched to his wound and the other wielding a shotgun. He signaled the Krogan to fall back, and then radioed in West.

"West, cover us were falling back"

The human replied "Got it, hurry up though they just dropped of more Blood Pack"

Garvak acknowledged the statement as he and Kravik ran back through the alleyway. Miraculousy nothing hit them, all he heard was the two shots of the sniper rifle going off in sucession. They made it back to their conceled car. Garvak radioed in to West.

...

"West were at the car, hurry up and get here"

Nathan lifted out of his trance like state, and picked up his rifle. The wound was still burning through his thigh, as he limped through the building. As he went down the staircase, he heard the Vorcha overrunning his position. He hobbled through the first floor when he saw a vorcha in the doorway. Without thinking Nathan fired two sucessive shots from the hip. One ripped through his shields, followed by the other which hit the vorcha in the torso, incapacitating him.

Nathan lmped through the door and down the alleyway, and soon realized there were a number of Blood Pack shooting at him. He rounded a corner to see the car. As he limped to it, Garvak supported his leg. They made it to the car just as the vorcha rounded the corner, and flew off.

As they flew through the city Nathan thought. He by some miraculous chance was able to pull off that. He killed at least 6 of the vorcha, all with kill shots. It was weird, as he was doing it he felt like if he were in a trance, almost in like a superhuman state of sorts.

Kravik broke him out of his thought "Garvak I thought you said this was a routine deal!"

"Kravik, how the hell was I suppose to know the Blood Pack would turn on us!" Garvak replied

"All I know is that if it weren't for the human, you would be dead" Kravik said looking at Nathan

"I know" replied Garvak replied turning to Nathan "I was doubtful about Aria picking up someone just like that, but after today I know she picked well"

Garvaks attention turned to the blade still lodged into Nathan's thigh "Yeah we should probably get you some armor"

Nathan looked down "Oh yeah, I forgot about that"

Kravik looked at the wound and smirked "Thats gonna make a good scar"

* * *

><p>After everyone got patched up, they headed to Afterlife to meet Aria. They walked up the stairs to see the Asari ganglord sitting in her usual spot.<p>

"The deal was staged, it was an ambush" exclaimed Garvak

Aria looked at him and calmly replied "I was wondering when Garm would grow the quad to challenge me" she looked at the group "Where is Jol at?"

Garvak replied "Dead, hit by a sniper"

Aria thought it over then looked at Nathan "How did West do?"

"He informed us of the ambush and covered our retreat" Garvak replied

Aria looked up at Nathan "How many of them did you kill West?"

Nathan answered truthfully "6 with the rifle and 1 with the tomahawk ma'am"

Aria gave a little smirk "I rarely give compliments West so savor this one. You have a gift, a gift to kill, and with that gift you're going to be at the forefront of this conflict."

Aria turned towards Garvak "Give him Jol's old room at the hotel, get him some armor, and a rifle better than the crap he has right now"

Garvak nodded and walked off. Aria turned back to Nathan "West stay in touch, with whats happened you're going to have alot more to do"

Nathan nodded and he walked off. As he exited Afterlife his omni-tool binged. He opened it to see it was a message.

_, it would seem that you have not only survived but thrived. Because of this i'll grace you by giving you your meeting as few days early. Meet me in the lobby of your hotel in an hour. We have much to discuss_

Nathan looked at the message with interest as he closed his omni-tool and walked away.

* * *

><p><strong>Undisclosed location on Omega<strong>

He finished writting the message and closed his omni-tool. He looked up to see his agent standing there at attention.

He nodded to him "Go you don't want to keep waiting"

"Yes sir" replied the agent

The agent exited the room, and he smiled. showed promise, the neural implants they had given him had improved his brain function making him smarter, and the physical implants would kick in soon, discreetly making it easier for him to build up muscle easier. He had spent a lot of money on bringing him here from another universe, but then again money was no object to him, in his buisness he makes a whole lot anyway. West was going to be the model pawn, pivotal in the years to come.

He laughed


	5. Chapter 5

_**a/n: Gotta say that putting out these chapter has really been a challenge for me. With school, and job-hunting, and life, i'm going to say expect at least one chapter per week from now on. Also gotta say that i'm loving all the positive feedback and constructive criticism i'm getting for this story, never expecting i'd get this much people following my story. Well, I should probably stop babbling right now, so you can read the chapter. Enjoy!**_

**Chapter 5: It's only just Begun**

Nathan walked into the lobby of his hotel. As he looked around he saw nothing suspicious, so he sat down at a table. Checking his omni-tool he saw that it was exactly the time the message had mentioned. He closed his omni-tool to see a piece of paper laying on the table. The table had been empty when he had looked down.

He picked up the note and took a look at it.

_Room 114 now._

Nathan stood up and walked to the elevator. He pushed the button for 2 floors above him. As the elevator made its way up, Nathan realized a terrifying realization.

_'These elevator are really this slow...SHIT!'_

After ascending 2 floors at the pace of a snail, Nathan got out and headed down the hall towards 114. As he reached the door, he lifted his hand to knock on it. Right before he did a voice was heard from inside

"Come in "

Nathan looked up to see a camera looking at him. He quickly seduced that whoever these people were handled their buisness carefully.

He made his way into the room. As he looked around, he saw that the room had the same basic layout of his room, or his old room now, since he would be taking Jol's old room. He looked to the dining area where he saw a man sitting at the head of the table looking towards the window. By the looks of it, he was somewhat prominent, wearing a suit.

He turned towards Nathan "Sit , you must have many questions"

Nathan cautiously sat down and asked "Since you obviously know who I am, I would want to know who you are as well"

"Fair enough, you can simply call me William"

Nathan nodded "Ok William, how did you get me here?"

William smiled "ALOT of money, any more explaination would merit a much longer time to explain"

"Ok, why me then, i'm sure a whole lotta people would have been more capable than me for this, and a whole lotta people would have wanted to do this more than me" Nathan replied

"That's the point , their not you"

"And what's so special about me that you would spend a whole lot to transport me from a whole other universe then?"

"Well , I wouldn't want to ruin the suprise for you, would I"

"Yeah actually you would" Nathan spat back

"Feisty just like your mother aren't you, fine i'll give you the pleasure. My boss spent all that money to bring you back to this universe"

Nathan's eyes widened "What?"

"Well let me specify" William began "Your parents is from this universe, and he worked for us. We knew that the reapers were coming, we had found a fully functional Prothean beacon that had contained their warning, that we activated. With that we learned of the cycle, but also a plan that the Protheans had made to stop it. They had discovered that our universe at the moment of creation had branched off from yours, and deduced that your universe held the solution to saving ours. So after long years of research they figured out how to transport being between the universes. Unfortunately, thats when the reapers hit them"

Nathan looked at him with a shocked look on his face

"The machine was relatively easy to build, and when it was finished your parents volunteered to go through. They obtained the information and started to feed it back through."

William sighed "But there was a problem. As the information feeded through, it started to overload the machine. By the time the machine overloaded, we had only gotten one bit of information reffering to a Commander Shepard destroying the Reapers and the year 2183. It was then that we realized that the information couldn't be sent like that, or we would risk tearing the fabric of the universe apart. The information presented could not be introduced to beings from our universe that had been so accustomed to our reality without major pyschological conseqences. Even with the minor amount of information that your parents saw, it still mentally changed their brains."

Nathan whose head was dug into his hands looked up "And you don't think that you should have told this to the council?" he asked

"You and I both know that the council would take this for bullshit and dismiss it" said William calmly

Nathan nodded in agreement "So where do I come in?"

"We realized that someone, an infant who's mind isnt already accustomed to one reality would be able to process the information unharmed, you were the perfect canindate. Your father trained you, but was unfortunately unable to finish, for reasons you already know"

Nathan raised his hand to his brow " Does this have anything to do with my parent's death?"

William sighed and looked down "During the project we had a breach in security, the plans for the transporter were stolen. We informed your father, he knew they were after you, and he had you moved to a safe place until the threat would be dealt with. But unfortunately they made it through their transporter. Your parents managed to stop them, but at the cost of his own life."

Nathan looked down for a second "You'll excuse me, if I don't fully believe all of this"

William nodded "its understandable, but maybe this will help you cope a little better" he said sliding a datapad across the table

Nathan caught it and looked at it. It had his father's name on it.

_Jack West_

Nathan scrolled through the files to find out that he was born in 2132, which would make him 49 now, 5 years older than he would have been in his universe. He scrolled through more to see that he was a merc, as well as an accomplished sniper. Then Nathan saw the pictures, confirming his disbelief.

Nathan looked up "If he died 2 years ago, then why didn't you come and get me 2 years ago"

"The information at the time suggested you were dead, it wasn't until recently that we discovered you were alive. After finding out we figured the best place to put the transporter would be somewhere we would know you would go, your parents grave"

"Alright then, what was with leaving me on a park bench in the worst part of the worst hell hole in the galaxy" said Nathan with a aggressive tone

"You needed to experience this naturally, and we needed to test your adaptibility. If we had told you all this a few days ago, you would have gone into a extreme form of shock and killed yourself"

"Didn't you say there was other's?" asked Nathan

"Well that was a lie to get you to perform your best. You see saying that makes you feel expendible, which merits a urge to work harder" William replied

"Ok, wait I thought I was meeting with your boss since he obviously has alot ridding on this"

"Well my boss is not one for public meetings, so he sent me. But don't worry you'll meet him soon enough"

Nathan gave a deep sigh trying to process all this information "Ok, what do you need me to do"

William looked up "The portion of the timeline your needed in starts in 2183, 2 years from now. From the minimal info i've told you and the knowledge you already know, you'll have to accompany this "Shepard" and assist him with fighting and destroying the reapers. But since thats 2 years from now, I suggest you keep doing what your doing, hone your skills for the coming fight. You already work for the most powerful ganglord in the Terminus systems, use that to your advantage, we may not know how this will go down, but you do. "

"Make your father's sacrifice worth something"

_**a/n: Alright guys, I would really appreciate some reviews for this chapter. Im not sure if this plot's going to be any good so I leave you guys to decide wheather or not I should continue.**_

_**CallsignReaper01 signing off**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**a/n: Well my word, it would seem that my little story have reached the 20 review mark. It may not be that big of a deal for most, but for a guy that was expecting at most 5 reviews, 20 seems awesome, and to add to that I haven't broken into ME1 yet, so if you keep the reviews coming I will keep pushing out chapters.**_

_**So last chapter, I presented you with the question of wheather or not the plot I had presented was good enough and interesting. So far I have gotten nothing but positive comments, so by process of elimination that means you liked the chapter. So I will be continuing this plotline. I would also like to thank Eromancer for his constructive criticism on the multiple universes theory, which I enjoyed.**_

**Chapter 6- The Price of Life**

**(2182)1 year later**

Nathan and Garvak sat in the bar area of Afterlife. They had just overseen the peace treaty between Aria's gang and the Blood Pack been solidified, and now they were taking a much needed down time. Garvak lowered his glass of Turian Brandy

"Nate, there isn't a price to life, it's the most valuable commodity in the galaxy. We may deal in it, we may treat it like crap, and we may end it like its nothing, but the difference between us and cold blooded murderers is that we respect it" Garvak said

"Its hard to see where the murderer stops and we begin though aint it" replied Nathan

"The difference is that we have saved more people than we've ever killed, and out of those that we've killed we've killed murderers, rapists, and all the other scum that dwell in the darkness of this planet"

"Yeah I guess your right, just glad that we made peace with the Blood Pack, however short it may be"

It had been one year since Nathan had unexpectedly awoken in the Mass Effect universe, and a lot had happened since then. He had bulked out, to say the least, now being at peak physical strength, he was considered one of the best markman in the Terminus, as well as one of Aria's top lieutanents. He kept contact with William, who would meet him at least once per month for a status report. It was through these meetings that Nathan learned that he was an information broker, which undoubtfully help Nathan out significally with finding his targets.

The year had also brought Nathan more developments on the murder of his father as well. The murder was conducted by Cerberus, which Nathan wasn't too suprised about, and more specifically the murderer was Kai Leng. To Nathan their motives were obvious, if they controlled him they would control the timeline, making changes where they see fit, meaning making humans the dominant race in the galaxy. But Nathan had to show restraint, to prevent the timeline from breaking he had to make sure Cerberus rebuilt Shepard and gives him the resources to defeat the collectors and hopefully destroy their base. He would have to wait for his vengeance, but when the time came he would personally make sure that Cerberus would be destroyed.

"Then a toast then, to this fragile peace we have, and to Kravik who's probably downing a gallon of ryncol wherever the Krogan afterlife took him" says Garvak

"Amen, brother" Nathan says downing some of his beer

Over the past year Nathan and Garvak had become real good friends. In Nathan's missions, Garvak would act as his spotter, which in most situations lead to hours of laying in the same spot waiting for your target to appear. It was during these times that they would just talk about life. Nathan had learned all about his time he had served in the Turian military, as well as that Garvak had a wife and a daughter. In turn Nathan told him a mix of his own life mixed with his forged life on Mindoir.

"Hey Nate, what are you doing tomorrow night?" asked Garvak

"Exercise, maybe catch a vid, or maybe buy one of these nice ladies a drink" Nathan replied nodding over to one of the Asari sitting at another table

"Hmmm interesting, well my wife is going to be making something nice for dinner tomorrow, and we were wondering if you'd like to join us"

Nathan was truly suprised by the offer, realizing that Garvak considered him to be a real good friend. "Yeah sure my pleasure"

"Great, if you could show up at 6 that would be great"

"No problem"

* * *

><p>Nathan stepped out of the shower, and dryed himself off. He was going to have dinner with Garvak and his wife tonight, so the least he could do was look presentable. He walked out of the bathroom into the main area of his apartment. Most everything was spartan in look, except the huge balcony overlooking the city, as well as the few art pieces he kept, and his model ship collection.<p>

He opened his closet and grabbed a nice suit out of it. He himself wasn't one to set fashion trends, but Aria insisted he get something he could wear that was "presentable" when he was around her. He grabbed the suit and put it on. It felt constricted as usual, even more so as he places his Kessler I pistol in his pocket. He didn't expect to use it, but as an assassin you learned to always be prepared.

He walked to Garvak's house which was a short distance away from the hotel. As he walked up to the house, he realized he hadn't really ever taken a good look at the place. It was relatively small, but by Omega standards it was pretty homey by the looks of it.

Another thought rang through Nathan's mind before he knocked on the door.

'Have I even seen a female Turian before. No, I don't think I have, at least I don't think I have. I know I haven't seen a Turian child before thought, thats for certain'

He knocked on the door. After a few seconds he heard footsteps on the other side, followed by the door opening. The door opened revealing Garvak, who was wearing what Nathan considered was casual men's wear for Turian's.

"Nate, come in, come in" Garvak greeted him with a handshake as he turned toward the direction of the dining room "Celia, Nathan's here" he added

Nathan heard footsteps from the direction of the dining room, which finally revealed the female Turian. Nathan looked at her, for the most part the feature were the same. The differences were minor, such as shorter feelers, more rounded head "spikes" if thats how you refer to them, and the addition of breasts.

"Hello, its a pleasure to meet you, i'm Celia, Garvak's wife" she said extending her hand

Nathan extended his hand and meet hers completing the handshake "Pleasures all mine, ma'am"

They made their way to the table where they saw a smaller Turian already sitting down, which Nathan pressumed was the daughter.

As they sat down Garvak turned to Nathan "Nate, this is my daughter Nemia"

Nathan gave a smile and hello. The girl couldn't be more that 5 at most.

"Papa where are his feeler's?" the girl said

Garvak and Nathan gave little chuckles "Honey, is human, he doesn't have feeler's"

"eeewww thats gross" the girl replied giving what Nathan would pressume was a face of disgust

"NEMIA!, you say sorry to him immediately" replied Celia with a raised tone

"Sorry " said the girl in a saddened tone

"It alright" replied Nathan as he noticed something

'Oh shit this is dextro food'

Nathan looked down at the food on his plate, it was composed of an assortment of almost paste like foods and something that looked vaguely like meat. not wanting to be rude he sucked it up and took a bite. He chewed it around his mouth, and realized it wasn't half bad, and tasted vaguely like chicken.

'Ha, I'm light years away from earth, and they can still make something that tastes like chicken'

"So Nathan, Garvak tells me that you two have had quite the experience being bouncers at Afterlife" Celia says

'Did she just say bouncer?'

Nathan shoots a look towards Garvak who gives Nathan a " Go with it" look.

Nathan finishes the food in his mouth and answers " Well most nights it gets pretty dull, but then there's that one night where you get a bar fight or someone harasses the dancers. Like this one night where this Krogan had had a little to much ryncol to drink, and started to pick a fight with one of our Krogan bouncers. To sum it up it took me, Garvak, and Kravik the Krogan bouncer awhile to calm him down and get him to leave"

'The Krogan that happened to be a Battlemaster, and ended up killing Kravik before we could kill him'

Nathan sighed "Crazy times"

He looked over at Garvak who had face palmed.

"Very interesting" Celia responded

All throughout the conversation, Nemia had been staring at Nathan "Mommy what are those pieces of skin hanging from the side of 's head"

Nathan smiled at the pure innocence of the child. Out of the many things he had lost during this year was his innocence. After learning all that had transpired, there was no way he could ever regain it, or his childhood again.

Nathan answered " These are my ears"

Nemia looked at the with amazement. The dinner went by quietly with the addition of Nemia asking a lot more about human anatomy. Eventually Nathan and Garvak ended up on the porch after Celia and Nemia went to sleep. Nathan sat on the bench while Garvak leaned against the railing overlooking the street.

Nathan broke the silence "You got one helluva daughter there Garvak"

"Yeah, smartest in her class"

"Maybe with some luck, she'll be able to leave this hell hole of a planet, maybe go to one of those universities on Palaven" Nathan replied

Garvak stood up "What's that old human expression,beat around the bush right? I know you want to ask me about tonight, so i'll just get it out of the way now"

Before Garvak could speak, Nathan stopped him "Garvak, you don't need to explain to me, I understand why you need to do it. Your job may not have the most glorious job in the galaxy, but you have a family, and you have to care for them the best you can. There is no shame in that."

Garvak smiled "You know Nate, you've been a good friend to me"

"Likewise" Nathan replied

Garvak sighed " Nate can I ask you a favor?"

"Anything buddy"

"If anything happens to me..."

"Garvak nothings going to happen to you"

"Nate, Nate just let me finish"

Nathan sat up and walked around the porch, to notice that Garvak was mimicking his movements to a point where his body was blocking Nathan from seeing the building across the street.

" Garvak what's going on!" Nathan said worried

"Nate I want you to make sure my family is safe, get them off planet, just anywhere but here, please" Garvak voice lowered

"Garvak what's behind you let me see" Nathan raised his voice

Garvak kept mimicking Nathan's movements.

"Nate...it's a hit"

Nathan thought in horror as he realized what Garvak was doing

"Garvak please don't..." Nathan started as a shot rang out

A half second later, Garvak's lifeless body fell to the floor, headless. Nathan fell to his knees now drenched in the blue blood of his friend. He expected to hear the next shot ring out, but it was completely silent. A tear rolled down Nathan's cheek.

A solemn thought popped in his head. This wasn't a hit, or he would have already been dead, this was a message. Whoever this assassin was wanted to challenge him.

He was going hunting.

_**a/n: Alright before you blurt out what the fuck, let me just add that this is developing Nathan's character for the rest of the story. Do not fret though as we are now on the road to ME1. Also I'd like to add that this little adventure will see him meeting a character you might not have expected to see this early on, guesses are welcome. So until next time.**_

_**CallsignReaper01 out**_


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7- The End Justifies the Means**

_**Flashback(2181- 1 month after insertion)**_

I walk into the main lobby of Afterlife with Garvak. Aria sent us messages on are omni-tools telling us to meet her in her usual spot, and its unwise to keep her waiting. Garvak and I walk across the main floor and up the stairs, passing all of the Asari strippers. Usually when Aria calls us there are more guards around, a usual signal that were doing a raid or attack of some sort, but today it looks a busy as usual.

We pass her usual bodyguards and stand at attention. She is looking at a datapad, and then looks up at us.

"Garvak,West right on time"

She looks back down at the datapad and continues talking "I have a personal errand that I need you two to run."

She tosses the datapad to me and I catch it looking at the display. It shows a Salarian.

"He's been dealing red sand on my turf, without a permit. He killed the collector I had sent to go rough him up, so that why I brought you 2 here. Kill him"

Garvak spoke up "Ma'am why did you bring me here, this is more of West's field of expertise isn't it?"

"It is, but today I want you to spot for him"

Garvak looked displeased, but if I had learned anything from the month i've been here, its that whatever Aria wants, she gets. Garvak nodded as we walked off

...

Garvak and I had laid in position for the last few hours waiting for the Salarian to show up. To pass the time we had one of our "would you rather" sessions, todays topic being ways you would want to die. But we started to get anxious.

But then we hit a piece of luck, a young Turian was walking down the street. With both of our combined intelligence, Garvak and I figured that he was a runner for the dealer and most likely had a shipment of Red Sand on him. A perfect scapegoat, if I killed him the Salarian would have to come out to retrieve his stash.

I leveled my gun and was about to pull the trigger when Garvak stopped me. The Turian ran inside the building, as I turned to Garvak.

"Garvak I had him!"

He looked at me "He wasn't our target"

"Yeah I know, but it would have forced the target out"

Garvak's voice raised slightly "At the cost of that young Turians life? Nathan, that Turian wasn't a killer, I could see that in his eyes. Probably is doing this to take care of his family or something like that. Nate if the means means that we have to deprive a innocent person of a life, then the end better be more important than killing some punk-ass drug dealer"

I thought about that in my head for awhile. I lowered my head.

"Your right, its not worth it"

"Emotion is what seperates us from them, always remember that Nate"

* * *

><p><strong>Present Day (2182- 1 year after insertion)<strong>

Nathan stared blankly at the corpse that had once been his friend. He had called in a group of Aria's gang to protect the family from any future attacks, and suprisingly when they came, Aria came with them. She walked up next to Nathan.

"The families going to be protected West, I can assure that" said Aria showing a rare moment of emotion

Nathan continued to look at the body" He took the shot for me, the assassin was after me" Nathan started to tear up which Aria noticed

She lifted him up and turned him around and looked straight at him "West get a fucking hold of yourself" she was yelling now which attracted the attention of some of the guards

"You know as well as I do that your the best damned sniper on this planet. You are a cold hearted mother fucking killer West, and you just saw your friend get killed by some punk ass assassin. Your going to fucking do what you do best, your going to find this fucker and make sure they pay for Garvaks death, are we clear"

West who was in shock from the yelling of the usually calm demeanor of Aria, straightened up and replied "Yes ma'am"

Aria who returned to her calm state replied "Then get the job done"

Nathan nodded and turned back to the body and knelt down. He looked over the remains of the entry point of the shot, which was now a huge cavity. As he looked he noticed that the residue from the round was radiating. The only rounds that he knew that could do that were Proton rounds, which made sense. A proton round was able to bypass any shield and directly hit its target. Nathan made a quick glance to Garvaks shield generator. He knew that it was a powerful model, so the assassin would need at least modded proton VI round to pierce the shield in one shot. This guy wasn't no amateur.

Nathan stood up and looked across the street trying to figure the rounds direction. He found its trajectory and it lead to a 3 story building a block away. He made his way to the building, climbing the stairs to the vantage point on the third story. He looked at the area around the window.

As he looked on the ground he could see an imprint of wher the assassins body had been laying, and by the looks of it they had been laying there for awhile.

'Damn bastard knew that it was his house, knew that his family was in there, but still killed him to challenge me. This persons a fucking psychopath'

Nathan continued looking around the area for awhile until he found something strange. As he walked up on it it looked like partially dried up spit. The building was abandoned, and the assassin had been here under an hour ago, so Nathan figured it must be the assassins. He knelt down and got a closer look at it noticing immedietly that it had a certain stench to it, similiar to when your ingesting red sand.

Nathan smiled 'Crazy fucking night'

Nathan examined it for awhile when a thought popped in his head.

'I remember Mordin say in Mass Effect 2 that certain drell excretions had hallucingetic properties to them'

Nathan thought it over. Drell were exceptionally good assassins.

'There is the possibility that, not it would'nt be Thane. Thane has morals, or at least I think he does'

Nathan did more thinking, and finally came to the conclusion that he needed help. He opened his omni-tool and dialed in a number.

"West you better have a good reason for calling me so late" said the voice

"William, I need you to run a search on someone" Nathan replied

"This person better be worth it" William replied

"Its my next target"

"Hmmm interesting, you know your going to have to pay me back for this"

"Whatever just do the search "

"Ok what do you need"

"I need a search on any deals on Omega dealing with Proton VI rounds or higher"

"Alright let me see what I can pick up" William replied as Nathan could hear him tapping on his omni-tool

"Oh well thats a bit odd"

"What?" Nathan replied

"Its seems that a deal was made by some arms dealer a few days ago which involved Proton VI rounds. The client was high profile and oddly was a Drell by the dealers accounts"

"Any names?"

"No, its ays the client was known as the Hunter"

Nathan thought it over a bit "Where is this arms dealer located"

"The Denido Warhousing complex on level 39"

Nathan nodded " I know the place, thanks"

Befoe Nathan could close his omni-tool William replied "West the place is guarded pretty tightly. Don't get yourself killed, remember you still got a bigger mission in all this"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence Billy"

"I told you not..." Nathan closed his omni-tool

...

Nathan walked up to the Denido Warehousing complex fully armed and armored. He looked over the place seeing that it had a small protection force of about 10 guards. Shifting his gaze to the main gate he saw that the guards had just finished changing shifts. Nathan looked up to see that light was peaking over the horizon. It would be morning soon, if he didnt hurry he would be a sitting duck.

Nathan hid behind one of the crates that one of the guards would be passing on their patrol route and waited. As soon as a lone guard was in his sights he pounced; tackling the man and pulling him behind the box.

Right as the guard was about to scream for help, Nathan shoved his pistol down the man's throat. "I wouldn't do that if I were you" Nathan whispered "Now im going to pull this out of your mouth, and your going to tell me what I want to know, am I clear?"

The guard nodded and Nathan pulled his gun out. The guard was sweating gallons as he stood up, and started to tremble

Nathan who kept his pistol aimed at him started to talk "Where is the dealer at?"

The guard still trembling mumbled "Are you going to kill him?"

Nathan replied "That wasn't my question, my question was where is he?"

"Look man, i'm not no gang member alright. He just hired any guy he could find off the street ok"

Nathan lowered his head and said "Again, that wasn't my question, now where is the dealer?"

The guard was sweating bricks now. He couldn't have been more than 20 years old. "If I tell you, you'll let me go"

Nathan nodded yes

"Alright, he's in the managers office of the main building. Can I please go"

Nathan looked at him "Get out of here, if I see you around here again you won't be so lucky"

"Yes sir" the guard replied as he ran off

* * *

><p>He had gotten a lead from one of his contacts here on Omega that lead him to this warehouse. The arms dealer inside would be able to point him in the right direction of his target.<p>

He made his way to the target building to see something odd. All the guards were either incapacitated, but not dead or gone entirely. He examined one of the bodies of the incapacitated guard. Blunt force trauma to the back of the head, it was done quickly, but the deed itself was sloppy.

As he approached the target building he saw another odd sight. A human was climbing the side of the building toward where the target was rumored to be. An assassin most likely, he would have to hurry, with the target dead he couldn't extract the information he needed.

He had made his way through the vents to a point which overlooked the managers office. From there he could see the situation. The pressumed assassin had the dealer up against the wall threatening him for information. He was about to pounce on the assassin, but before he could do so he heard something in the conversation.

"You sold Proton VI rounds to a Drell a few days ago, what was the name of the Drell"

The dealer was panicking "I...I dont know man, she called herself the hunter thats it"

"Did she have you send it somewhere, an address maybe?"

The dealer grabbed a data-pad off the table and handed it to him "Here here that the address"

The assassin would only impede his progress to the target, he would have to kill him. Right before he jumped though an action from the assassin caught him off guard. The assassin let him go.

"If I ever see you anywhere near here again, your going to wish i'd killed you here"

The assassin lowered his pistol, and threw the dealer aside, who then proceeded to run out of the room. He was surprised, the assassin was obviously enraged, but instead of killing off the dealer he let him go, something that took massive amounts of self control .

He observed the assassin as he turned around, and again was surprised at what he saw. The assassin was Nathan West. He himself didn't know that much about West, but what he heard from his sources was that he had entered the scene about a year ago, and was immediately picked up by the asari T'Loak as her personal hitman. He had also learned that West was revered as a marksman prodigy, some considered him the best assassin on Omega,racking up a rumored 60 contracts in the past year alone.

But something was off about the situation, his sources stated that the dealer didn't have any contracts on him at all. Why would an assassin of West's caliber hunt him and then let him go. He decided that it would be more beneficial to learn West's motives before acting.

He jumped down from the vent warranting a immediate response from West, who turned around gun raised at him

His faced looked surprised as he spoke "Thane Krios"

**a/n: duh duh duhhhh, our mystery character is Thane. Thanks for reading, just wanted to put it out there that I can't wait to see the Avengers tomorrow, midnight premiere baby. Oh and if your looking for a great OC story to latch on to, read " Say Hello to the Galaxy" from Marcus Redfeild. It's a great story he's starting up, and it deserves to be read.**

**CallsignReaper01 out**


	8. Chapter 8

**_a/n: Hello readers I am back with another chapter of The Hunt. But before we begin I want to address how amazingly awesome a movie The Avengers was. If you are even a fan of but 1 of these movies, then you need to watch this movie, just saying. The movie has also given me some off hand inspiration for this story, but to find out you must read on._**

**Chapter 8- Hunting the Hunter**

"Thane Krios" Nathan said looking up at him showing a bit of shock

Thane nodded to which Nathan responded "Well considering that i'm still alive, i'm wondering why your here?"

Thane looked at West as the human leaned up against the desk. The slight darkening under his eyes suggested that he had been depraved of sleep for quite some time, but what his eyes showed his body didn't follow. His body was tense, and his eyes dialated suggesting a flow of adrenaline to his body, signs of aggression on the inside.

"I needed information from that dealer, but it would seem you have already retrieved it. What I want to know is what you plan on doing with the information?" Thane replied

Thane could hear the pitch of West's voice change as he answered "This "Hunter" killed a close friend of mine as an invitation to challenge me"

Thane thought over West's words. In any other situation he would have killed West as he was impeding his progress toward his target, but West's motive suprised him. His look implied that he had no care for proving he was a better assassin, but for avenging the loss of his friend. Most people of this trade wouldn't go that far for another, something that reminded himself of his own mission. West showed promise, and for this he would let him live.

"It appears that we have the same target" Thane started "I would belive it beneficial if we worked together"

Nathan nodded

"Very Well" Thane started as he picked up a datapad that had been laying on the floor "The Hunter goes by the name of Dralla Zline. She is a master marksman, as well as a good fighter. She was deemed mentally ill, and has the belief that she is the best assassin in the galaxy, killing anyone who posses a threat to that title. The fact that she wants to face you head on means that she believes you to be a potential challenge"

Thane looked at the datapad then back at West, who was looking back at him. The look on his face was one of analysis. Thane was expecting West to ask about his own intentions on killing Zline, but West stayed quiet.

After Thane finished looking at the datapad, West spoke up "Any leads on that datapad?"

Thane looked up and spoke "Its a shipping manifest for high end weaponry sent to a privately owned small freighter" Thane handed the datapad to Nathan

Nathan looked at the datapad "The ship design looks Batarian, possibly slavers, but they wouldn't carry weapons this high tech"

"All the more reason that Zline could be on that ship"

Nathan glanced back down at the datapad "Looks like that freighter leaves tonight"

"then that is our destination, we should scout it out before tonight" Thane mentioned

"Agreed, but I have keep a promise to a friend first

...

Thane watched West from a alleyway across the street as he talked to the female turian.

"Celia I think it's in your best interest to leave Omega, is there anywhere you could go,family you could stay with" West said

The female Turian who Thane figured was Celia looked exhausted, and emotionally unstable replied "I have a father, and a brother, but they live on Palaven. We barely have enough credits to make it out of the Terminus systems"

West looked down at his omni-tool and replied " How much would it cost"

Celia looked surprised at the notion " I couldn't ask you to do that"

West looked back up " I made a promise to Garvak, that I would ensure your I figure it would be around 6000 credits each, right?"

"Spirits, how could you afford this"

Thane looked as West stumbled with his next words implicating that he was lying, though Celia didn't notice.

"Well i've saved up quite a lot of credits as a bouncer"

Celia hesitated "It still wouldn't feel right taking your hard earned credits away from you"

"Celia its really no problem. Garvak entrusted me to keep you and Nemia safe and I plan to do just that, at whatever the cost. Besides I would have used the credits on something stupid anyway"

Thane watched as Celia stood there thinking it over.

"Well ok i'll take it, but what are you going to do now?" replied Celia as West transferred the credits to her omni-tool

Thane sensed that West was lying again

"Well I have to tie up some off Garvak's loose ends concerning his job"

Celia gave the Turian equivalent of a smile "Thank you so much Mr. West, i'll find some way to repay you for this"

West nodded goodbye and started to walk away as he replied "Just stay safe, thats all the reward I need"

As West walked away, all of a sudden Celia came running back to him " wait"

West turned around as Celia handed him an object.

West looked down at the object as Celia spoke "Their Garvak's holo-tags from when he served with the Turian military, he would have wanted you to have them"

West looked down at the tags.

Garvak Tharkian  
>1st Sergeant<br>9th Platoon

"Celia I couldn't possibly take these" West replied

"Please do,it... it will help me with the healing process... please"

West gripped the tags as he placed them in his pocket.

"Thank you Celia, stay safe" West said as they bid each other farewell

...

Thane stood with West concealed on top of a building overlooking the spaceport, They had been camping for a couple of hours as they examined the ship. It was during then that Thane noticed the odd piece of weaponry that West carried. Throughout his travels, Thane had learned that this was an ancient human weapon called a tomahawk.

Thane looked at West who was surveying the area around the freighter, he looked deep in thought, as if he wanted to ask something.

"You look confused" said Thane

West sat there for a second then spoke up " Why are you going after Zline, competition isn't your M.O?

Thane knew this question was coming, he looked down and hesitated. But before he spoke West responded.

"She killed someone close to you didn't she,family?"

Thane was surprised by West's response. His assumption was correct, as Thane was realizing that West wasn't your normal assassin. Though West was young, he was incredibly bright, his reflexes sharp, and at peak physical condition. He could do whatever he wanted in this life,but he chose the life of an assassin, a killer. That fact confused him.

Thane answered "She was one of the ones responsible for the murder of my wife, Irikah"

West's expression was one of understanding as he responded "I'm sorry"

"You have nothing to be sorry about, I should have told you my intentions earlier West" Thane replied

"I understand your concern Thane, I was a random variable in all this" said Nathan as Thane nodded. " Oh and Thane,call me Nathan" West said as he turned back to overlooking the freighter.

Thane gave a small smile before turning back towards the freighter as well

...

Awhile later Nathan spoke up again

"Looks like we got 2 slavers guarding the entrance to the freighter and 1 patrolling the perimeter" said West

"Can you take them out from here"Thane responded

Nathan nodded, as Thane watched him place his silencer mod on his rifle. As he was aiming it Thane noticed the quanity of small lines carved onto the surface of the rifle, a common practice among people of this trade to signify the amount of kills they have made with said weapon.

Thane heard West mumble to himself "35 yards to target, adjust for bullet drop, slight crossbreeze from the east, adjusting, and fire"

The shot gave a silent pop and a second later Thane saw the patrols head dissapear. The area around this area of the spaceport was abandoned so no one saw the patrol go down. Before even Thane could look down he heard another 2 shots go off one after another. He looked at the 2 guards at the entrance to see them already on the ground.

Thane and Nathan made their way to the entrance of the ship, and hid the bodies. They made their way through the freighter and quickly noticed something wrong.

" A slave freighter, but no slavers" Nathan mentioned

"Yes this is odd, stay alert" Thane replied

They continued to search through the freighter until they reached the control room. They breached the room to see all the consoles on and still there was no one there.

"What the hell is going on here?" Nathan whispered as he looked at the main console

The console showed the ships core slowly rising in tempurature and pressure.

"Why are the vents closed, thats going to cause the drive core to go critical" said Nathan who started trying to override the locks to the vents

Right as Thane was about to respond, he heard a sound from the hall. As he left the room the door shut behind him. As he examined the door, he noticed it had been locked. Then he heard noices up fron the vents running into the control room.

He then realized what was happening

"Nathan its a trap" he yelled as he started to try to override the door

* * *

><p>Nathan turned to hear Thane's voice from outside the room as a figure dropped from the vents.<p>

Nathan gripped his pistol and tomahawk to see the blue drell start to walk towards him.

"I see you got my message " Zline said softly

"Your insane" replied Nathan

"You should be honored , most assassins don't get the pleasure of seeing me before they die" said Zline who smiled as they walked around each other

"Who says im gonna die?" replied Nathan

Zline chuckled "Look at the facts , i've killed many of the best assassins in the galaxy, and I killed your friend, what was his name, Garvak right?"

Nathan tightened his grip on his weapons.

"Oh, looks like I hit a soft spot. Say, how did his family take it, how about his daughter, how long did she cry?"

Nathan broke and started to unload his pistol on the Drell. But even at point blank range, the shots from his heavy pistol bounced of her shield.

Zline shot a warp at West, who proceeded to dodge it, and charge the Drell. He threw a overhand with his tomahawk which was blocked and proceeded to sock West in the face. West stumbled back nursing the new bruise on his face.

"Come on, I was expecting a better fight from the prestigious assassin of Omega" Zline laughed as a red light started to cover the room

"Alert, alert, drive core has reached critical tempurature. Recommend vent release." The ships V.I spoke out

Nathan spoke a few more shots from his heavy pistol, only to be blocked again by the shield.

"You like it, I designed the shields myself, nearly impenatreble"

They went on with their fist fight, with Nathan not landing a single shot on Zline. After awhile Nathan gathered a few more bruises, and was knocked on the ground. As he hit the ground Zline proceeded to put them into stasis. Zline held the stasis as she walked up towards him.

"T-minus 5 minutes to core meltdown" the V.I sounded off

Zline laughed "Just enough time to kill you"

With that Zline started to choke out Nathan who was still in stasis.

Nathan started to lose consciousness, but managed to stay awake. Zline tighted her grip, which caused Nathan to pass out. Zline dropped the stasis and Nathans unconcious body dropped to the floor.

Zline smiled as she picked up Nathan's tomahawk "How ironic, kill him with his own weapon"

Zline aimed the weapon at Nathan's neck "Goodbye "

Just before she released the weapon, the door flew open and Zline was biotically thrown against the opposite wall. She looked to see Thane with his biotics flared coming towards her.

She smiled "Not today Krios"

She threw down a smoke bomb and fled out of the room.

As the smoke cleared, Thane started to head out of the room to chase down Zline. But before he did, he glanced at Nathans unconcious form on the ground.

"The untimely death of a good life is not worth the timely death a bad life"

Thane picked up Nathan and started to run through the ship looking through the exit.

"T-Minus 30 seconds to drive core meltdown"

Thane saw the exit and headed towards it. He ran down the ramp the lead to the ship and got clear of the ship. As he took cover a humming noise filled the air, and a few seconds later the freighter exploded sending pieces of burning ship into the surrounding buildings.

He picked up Nathan again. Zline was nowhere to be seen, she was gone. Thane knew it would take a while before she resurfaced again, and when she did, he would find her. But the priority now was getting Nathan to safety.


	9. Chapter 9

_**a/n: Hey hows everyone doing, just a little note here. This chapter will be mainly time laspse for reasons that can better be explained in the chapter. Also this may be totally wrong but I have a feeling that i'm streaching out this period before ME1 to long and you guys are getting bored of it. So if I can get some feedback on that i'd be grateful. I expect to intersect the ME1 plot by Chapter 12, but if you guys want it sooner then I can reduce it, so let me know.**_

**Chapter 9- Searching**

Nathan awoke to an assortment of pain throughout his body. As he sat himself up he heard a familiar voice.

"The injuries you recieved were minor, they will heal with time" It was Thane who sat in a chair across the room

Nathan examined his surroundings, he was in a dimly lighted room. Nothing much but a bed, a couple of chairs, and a desk.

"What happened, where are we?" Nathan asked as he stood up and nursed his bruised ribs

"Zline incapacitated you, but I was able to intervene before she killed you" Thane responded "As for the latter we are in a safehouse, still on Omega"

Nathan recalled the events of what happened, and quickly reached toward the strap on his leg to find it empty.

"Where are my weapons?" Nathan asked

Thane pointed to the corner of the room "However Zline made off with the weapon you called a tomahawk"

Nathan sat back down "Fuck!, any idea where she is now"

"No, she escaped as I recovered you"

"What's are next move?"

Thane thought on it for awhile "I believe it to be best if I continued this on my own"

Nathan immediately stood up "This isn't just your fight!"

Thane calmly replied "Your encounter with Zline nearly killed you. You don't have enough experience to face her again, and you are injured"

"Then teach me how to face her. I know for a fact that your a better assassin than she is" Nathan coughed still holding his ribs

"I have been training for many years Nathan, we do not know when Zline will resurface again, and I will not risk you dieing because of it"

Nathan looked down

"All your supplies are here, but I must go now" Thane made his way to the door

Just as Thane reached the door Nathan spoke up "If you were in the same position as me would you just give up. Just leave it all behind, let someone you cared about die in vain. Thane, even if I fail and die in the process, I would know that I at least died trying, that I didn't just walk away. That Turian I was talking to earlier, that was my friends wife, and the younger Turian was his daughter. I could tell that they had grieved so much. No one, especially a child should have to grieve that much"

Nathan pulled the hol-tags out of his pocket and threw it to Thane "They gave me that, said that he would have wanted me to have it. If I just give up, I have to look at that for the rest of my life and tell myself that I failed. So if I die, I die, but I die with the knowledge that I at least tried my damned best to leave this galaxy better than when I arrived in it"

Thane was shocked but intrigued by Nathans word and stood there for awhile.

After a few minutes he spoke "The training will require much sacrifice, you will have to fully commit"

Nathan knew that this would be the least of the sacrifices that he would have to make in the years to come

"My life has been nothing but sacrifice for a long time, I can take some more" Nathan said "Where do you suggest we begin hunting?"

"Illium, its the information hub of the Terminus systems, not even the most experienced assassins can stay off the radar of all the information brokers"

* * *

><p><strong>Thane's POV<strong>

**November 2182**

**Cargo Hold of the commercial freighter "Zhan Ki"  
><strong>

**In transit from Omega to Illium**

It has been around a week since leaving Omega. Nathan and I have stowed away on the freighter "Zhan Ki" with the ultimate destination of reaching Illium. To avoid any suspicion we have picked a freighter than makes a few stops before reaching Illium. While being a necessary precaution, the cargo hold provides me with an adequate space to train Nathan. The number of crates proves a great obstacle for free-running as well as adequate terrain for firearms practice. We have made a deal with the crew to ignore our actions as we travel, only going far enough to provide us with daily meals.

Nathan himself is a remarkable individual. He shows no signs of stress due to his injuries he sustained in his fight with Zline, and seems very intent on starting his training even though most his wounds have not healed. Nathan also proves to be a master level marksman. Most if not all weapons systems I have seen him use, he uses with an accuracy that competes with special forces units of most the militaries ive seen. He has also proven to be very potent stratigist as well as survivalist. Though he does need work on both his speed and hand to hand fighting skill, he does show progress. We will start working on free-running tomorrow to improve his speed and agility.

**Nathan's POV**

Its been a week since we left Omega and I still feel like shit. We paid off a crew of a freighter to have us stow away on their trip to Illium, though to not alert anyone they will make a couple of stops first. I may feel like crap but i'm ready to get this training on, Thane says I need work on my speed and my hand to hand fighting. Says were starting free-running training tomorrow. Remember seeing videos on Youtube back home on free-runners, crazy ass shit, but the concept seems exciting none the less.

Also thinking about ways to bypass Zline's shields when we meet her. She said they were homemade or some shit like that so i'm guessing their modded in some way. Just want to get this done as quickly as possible, get some redemption for Garvak's family, because all in all, when this is all said and done I still got the question of Eden Prime looming over me at a few moths away from now. Work, work, work...fuck i'm sore.

* * *

><p><strong>Thane's POV<br>**

**December 2182  
><strong>

**Safehouse  
><strong>

**Illium**

We've spent a few weeks here on Illium and gather quite a bit of information on Zline's whereabouts. We recieved information from a broker referring us to string of assassinations being investigated by Illium security. Following the lead led us to learn that the assassinations had been targeted at higher up gang members of seperate gangs, mostly the Blue Suns, and Eclipse,and after successfully convincing them to divulge their information, the murders were caused by the twin Asari assassins Gaila and Cara D'Nal. The D'Nal sisters made their living by starting gang wars and reaping the benefits of both the organizations hiring them for hits. This wouldn't have caught our attention if not for the assassination of Cara a few days later. The motives pointed to Zline as the assassin, and if she killed Cara it was certain she was after Gaila as well. The only problem was that we had no idea where Gaila went.

Nathan continues to surprise me with his progress. He has adapted amazingly fast to the training I have given him, and proves to be a capable free-runner now. It is interesting to have a companion on a mission for once. He is a capable young man, but lately his mental state has been questionable. Lately he has been screaming in his sleep. When I question him on it he dismisses it as nightmares. I believe him, though I will keep an eye on him, possible have him take up meditation.

**Nathan's POV**

A few weeks have passed here on Illium and we have gotten some surprising results. In short Zline's going after the D'Nal twins, or should I say the remaining twin. Zline shot Cara in the wide open, head shot, bitch never had a chance in hell. Her sister escaped Illium, and we are currently trying to locate her which will hopefully lead to Zline. Damn nightmares have been keeping me up for the past week or so, all the pressure is getting to me. Worst part is that it's going to get worse.

Trainings been good and Thane says that I'm improving faster than he expected. Never in my life would I have expected that I would be able to free run. Thane suggests than we start hand to hand training soon, as always I'm ready for what he's got in store. Zline's gonna get some payback for those bruises. Still haven't found much to help with the shield issue though, if I could just find a way to bypass them. Only way I'm getting through those at the moment is with a rocket launcher at point blank, pretty sure that ain't going to work out nicely, wouldn't want to end up like Garrus in ME2.

On a brighter note I did get a message from Celia yesterday. They made it to Palaven ok. Also mentioned that I'm a hero, that made me chuckle a bit. Says that her father is going to message me a note of thank you as well.

* * *

><p><strong>Thane's POV<strong>

**January 2183**

**Aboard commercial transport freighter "Celion"**

**In transit from Illium to the Citadel**

We have discovered the location or rather future location of Gaila. She is planning on visiting the Citadel within the next few weeks. So Nathan and I have boarded another transport freighter the "Celion". Once again we have made the necessary precautions to ensure that we don't arrouse attention by arriving their abruptly. Nathan has also discovered a possible solution on bypassing Zline's shields as well. His strategy includes shooting a weapon whose velocity is low enough to not activate the shields mass effect fields. Nathan has procured the weapon through one of his sources and he plans to retrieve it on the Citadel. His idea while extremely clever, was influence oddly enough from what he said was an old human vid from the year 2012.

Nathan continues to suprise me with his progress. He is an exceptional young man, and quite an interesting companion to travel with. Under my guidance he has adopted meditation, and as a result has had less and less occurances of his nightmares, though they still persist. He has become an adept hand to hand fighter and along with the freerunning skills he has gathered he has the potential to improve rapidly over time.

It is odd, in this profession friendship between 2 people is uncommon but yet Nathan refers to me as his friend. The thought while well appreciated by myself just seems out of place for me. So many years hunting those who deserve to die has accustomed me to traveling alone in isolation. Nathan though realizing the death and destruction of the galaxy around keeps a positive attitude despite the be its just a humancustom, though I will meditate on it.

**Nathan's POV**

Finally got a lead on Gaila's location, the Citadel. Can't believe I've been here 2 years and I've actually never seen it before. Now that I think about I've never been outside the Terminus Systems before either. Well either way I'm ready to finish this and finally put Garvak to rest. I also found a way to bypass Zline's shields as well, shoot a weapon that velocity is low enough not to activate the shields mass effect fields on contact. Oddly enough the idea came to me while watching a movie on the extranet. Funny thing, in this universe, human filmakers actually made the exact same copy of the Avengers movie in idea hit when I saw Jeremy Renner playing Hawkeye, a bow and arrow. While the weapon was slower than a bullet, it had enough penetration force to break through armor. So after much argument with William about the subject, he will be able to get one sent to the Citadel, at the cost of helping him with a job after this charade is over. He is such a cheapskate.

Thane says that my training is nearly complete. Though I'm usually optimistic about these things, I believe that more training wouldn't hurt, but Thane reassures me that it's enough, and with experience like his I'm inclined to believe him. Thane has opened up more to me during the past months. He's shared some of his life story with me the other day. I felt honored at the notion that I knew what probably most versions of Shepards won't know, at least not the femsheps that romanced him. I'm glad to call him my friend now, it will definetely come in handy during ME2, if I make it that long.

From what I pieced out of the extranet as well, was that this universes Shepard is a femshep. Though information was slim to none I was able to piece together an article about Elysium, and news on her being a survivor from Mindoir. That would make her have a Colonist, War Hero background, though I'll probably have to wait for myself to see dor myself for the class, and weather she's paragon or renegade. Hell, I'll probably have to expand my background more to convince her that I'm from Mindoir to. Ahhh yes more work, but first payback time.


	10. Chapter 10

_**a/n: Over 40 freakin reviews, that is absoulutely amazing, and the best part is I havent even broken the canon for ME1 yet. To all my brilliant and awesome readers, you are amazing, never would have thought this many people would enjoy my material, so just give yourselves a pat on the back.**_

_**Also if your craving some more ME self insert stories, I suggest in reading Mass Effect: Awakening by Disturbed318. The stories just starting and has a great plot already, and could use some reviews. So go and read it, especially if your a Talimancer (You know you are, don't hide it).**_

_**Also in the field of the OC fanfic's I must stress again to read Say Hello to the Galaxy by Marcus Redfeild. Its a great story, and needs more reviews. If you have any grudges against the Batarians at all, want to maybe punch one in the face, or just strait up shoot them, this is the story for you.**_

_**(I am not in anyway being racist to the Batarian race, I love all the races in the ME universe even though I have a 5 million credit bounty on my head issued by the Batarian Hegemony for killing a tenth of their population on Omega, I am and have never been racist to the Batarian people.) ~ Yours truly Nathan West**_

_**And finally on my suggestions list, not that it needs any help, but i'll still do it because the story is freakin awesome, read Welcome to the New Family by Rev28. Its the sucessor to his previous fic Welcome to the Family. As I am looking now it has 3 chapters and already 78 reviews. So you cant argue with that logic.**_

_**And now that ive wasted enough of your time lets continue the hunt for the medically insane female Drell assassin Dralla Zline.**_

**Chapter 10: The Kill**

"Commercial freighter Celion, you are cleared to land. C-Sec officials will be ready to check your cargo when you land"

"Gotta love those council trade regulations right? They gotta find it necessary to check every damn ship coming from the Terminus systems" I spat sarcastically as I hooked my sniper rifle on to the strip on my back

I look to see Thane carefully taking off one of the covers to the air ducts. "We'll get out through here" he says

I nod and follow him in. I maybe a hardened assassin and killer but it still gets to me that i'm travelling with one of the most badass characters in the ME universe. But over the past few months he's become more than a character to me, he's become my mentor, as well as my friend. Though its almost impossible to read him, I sense that he lightening up to me as well.

We crawl through the ducts in the overall goal of coming out through the duct nearest to the docking platform. As we pass through the ducts above the cargo hold, I look through a duct and see the crew talking with a few C-Sec officials. It is then that I hear a particularly familiar voice.

"Hmmm, interesting, this grate is loose, you sure you don't have any stowaways on board" It was Garrus's voice

Members of the crew responded "No" but it was clear that they were close to breaking.

Despite having a total fangasm moment, I knew that we only had a small amount of time before Garrus broke the crew and this ship would be crawling with C-Sec agents looking for us.

I looked at Thane who had the same realization as I did and we picked up the pace. A few minutes later, we were close to reaching our desired exit when the intercom went off.

"We have confirmed the presence of 2 stowaways on this ship, 1 Drell and 1 Human, start searching the ducts, people" It was Garrus's voice again

"We gotta move" I say

"Agreed" Thane replied

We crawled through the ducts more, when we heard thumps coming from multiple directions in the ducts.

"C-Sec's closing in" Thane says as we reach the exit

We climb out of the side of the ship, and start heading towards the heavily crowded areas of the wards. After a few minutes of running I stop and see that i've lost Thane. Just as this realization hits me, I feel the cold barrel of a pistol touches the back of my head.

"Shit!" I exclaimed

"Never thought I'd find Nathan West, the Assassin of Omega, and the scourge of the Terminus, would stow away on a freighter" It was Garrus's voice again

"You patronize me Officer...?" I reply sarcastically

"Vakarian. You know a lot of people want to kill you, The Batarian Hegemony, The Blue Suns, The Eclipse, the list goes on, but unfortunately regulation wants me to arrest you" Garrus replied

"You seem troubled Officer Vakarian" I reply

"Well I would rather kill murderous assholes with no morality like yourself but I guess arresting you has its own rewards"

"Don't be quick to judge people officer, today's criminal might become tomorrows ally"

"To bad you won't get that chance then" Garrus smirked

I smirked in return "Then a little note of advice Officer Vakarian...don't look at me, look at what i'm doing"

I proceed to step on his foot, which in turn causes his gun arm to swing wildly away from my head. I turn around possesing the knowledge Thane taught me, smack the gun out of his hand with my left hand and sock Garrus in the side of his face with my right.

Garrus falls to the ground unconscious, and I ran off.

"That's gonna come back to bite me in the ass " I say

I run off into the wards fearing that I hadnt just made some Turian sexual pun

...

I made my way through the wards until I reached the spot where William was to meet me with the weapon. As I entered the building complex that bordered the market, I saw that Thane was already there.

"You couldn't have at least been a little discreet?" says William who reveals himself from behind the wall

"Well you know those pesky Citadel commercial laws" I reply

"I don't think that makes up for the fact that you are now on C-Sec's most wanted list" William spits back

"Just put that on my tab of things I have to repay you for"

William facepalms "Fuck, i'll see what I can do. You know it wasn't easy for me to get that weapon of yours through processing"

"I'm suprised that C-Sec would still consider it a weapon"

"They didn't, they considered it an antique, and for some reason antiques take more time than weapons to process, and a helluva lot more money"

I shrugged "So, did you get it?"

"Of course I got it" William leads me to a box sitting in the corner of the room

I open it to see a quiver, as well as a collapsed futuristic version of a "modern" bow.

"fully automated quiver with automatic delivery for easy access as well as collaspsible arrows for higher capacity, that good enough for you"

I grab the bow and flick my arm causing the bow to expand "This will do the trick, do you have the other thing I asked?"

William pulled the little glass vile out of his pocket and handed it to me "only enough for one shot"

"Thats all i'll need"

...

Thane and I had arranged a meeting with Gaila on the top floor of a parking complex. We arrived and waited a few minutes when the asari emmerged from a shaddowed corner.

"You two better have a damned good reason for me coming here" she said

"I'm sure your aware that Zline will travel here to kill you" Thane said

"No shit" Gaila spat back with a ferocity

"Well then, we propose that we all work together for the time being, to take Zline down"

Gaila pondered it for awhile "Fine what do you need me to do"

"Just go about your buisness and we'll have you cov..."

Thane peered out the window, and quickly turned around yelling "Get down"

On instinct I dropped to the floor, only to hear the sound of breaking glass and a gunshot. After what seemed like a few seconds of shell shock, I look to see a puddle of blood surrounding the now headless body of the Asari assassin.

'Shit SHIT SHITTTT!'

I crawl over to the cover underneath the windows, and expand my rifle, only to be greeted by a voice on my Omni-Tool.

"Well I guess I have to thank you two for making my kill so easy. Now that the buisness is done with we can have some fun" Zline's voice rang out as a few bullets zipped over me

"didn't think you were expecting me back Zline"

"You two are the best competition i've had to date, it will be pleasurable to kill you" She replied

I looked over to Thane who was right beside me, who was trying to think up a plan. I looked to the ground to see a shard of glass laying there. I picked it up with the intention of using it to get an idea of where Zline was based on the reflection.

I lifted the piece of glass up to see that she was across the courtyard on the top level of an adjacent building. After a second though I heard a shot and the glass shattered. I shielded my face from the sharpnel and heard the comm on my Omni-Tool come alive again.

"No peeking, thats cheating"

Rolling my eyes I look over to Thane

"Where is she?"

"Across the courtyard, top floor of the building, left side"

"Can you make the shot from here?" Thane asked

"No, I need to get in closer"

"She's got this building covered, we need an escape route"

"Agreed, any ideas?" I reply

"We use smoke as cover" Thane said as he tossed me a smoke grenade

"Cool with me lets do it"

I grabbed the smoke grenade and tossed it on the ground. The room filled with smoke as Thane prepared to run for the next cover. I gave him a signal and he made his way to the next cover. We kept doing this until we made our way out of the room.

Sounding visibly angry Zline's voice came over the comm again " I didn't know you liked taking the cowards way out, "

Sensing that she was trying to break my focus I replied " The best assassin in the galaxy can't handle a little smoke Zline, pathetic"

"Oh i'll show you pathetic West" Zline said angrily

Thane and I made our way to the roof of the building without alerting Zline. We made out way to the cover overlooking the courtyard.

"Nathan we can't just keep moving around like this"

"I'm thinking"

' Come on, come on, need something to trick a sniper, come on think. Um, wait, wait Stalingrad, World War 2, Vasily Zaitsev. Thats it the helmet trick'

"Got it"

"What do you have"

I took of my helmet and hung it on the barrel of my rifle, then gave it to Thane.

"I'm going to sneak around to a position where I can fire the bow, when I give you a signal use the rifle to lift my helmet above the cover enough so Zline can see it"

Thane realized what I was doing and nodded.

...

I made my way through the buildings, progressively getting closer to Zline's position. I heard the progressive rifle shots easily from where I was at. Thane had started to blind fire 2 weapons to simulate that we were both in that position still. For now it was working.

Zline's voice started to crackle onto the omni-tool's comm again

"Give it up West, there's no way you can win, you'll just die"

I entered the building where Zline was at.

"But you know the best part of you dying"

I climbed to the top floor as quietly as I could.

"Its the feeling that you know you failed"

I quietly progress through the rooms, now with my bow extended.

"And you know what i'm going to do after I kill you and Thane"

I entered the room adjacent to her and loaded my arrow onto the bow.

"I'm going to Palaven and personally killing the rest of that damned Turian family"

I whispered "Now"

Thane lifted the helmet.

"Gotcha" Zline said as she fired

I could hear the impact of the helmet as I rounded the corner into the room.

"Not quite, bitch" I said as I launched the arrow from point blank range

Suprised Zline tried to raise her weapon in time to react but was to late, as the impact to her unarmored stomach knocked it out of her hand.

She stumbled around and then started to laugh.

"You...you expected that to kill me. Thane should have taught you more about Drell anatomy. Even if you did hit something vital, this thing plugged it up for me" She laughed as she pulled it out

I smirked "You might want to take a closer look at that arrow then"

She looked to see a clear viscous liquid mixed in with the blood already on there.

I mocked her " You didn't expect me to come after 'the galaxies best assassin' without a back up plan right"

Zline started to shake "What... what is this?"

Thane walked into the room.

"Cyanide, especially hard to get nowadays" I replied

Zline started to convulse and fell on the floor. It would take at least a few minutes for her to die.

Thane walked up and looked at her and started to pray. I stood next to him and watched him.

Zline's hand slowly made its way to her pistol, and eventually grabbed it and pointed it at Thane.

"See you in hell" she said as she pulled the trigger

I looked at her right as she pulled the trigger.

"NOOO!" I yelled as I pushed Thane out of the way

I could feel the pain as the bullet ricocheted off part of my eye and my temple, before I blacked out.

...

It happened so fast for Thane. Nathan had pushed him out of the way to save him, and now before him lay the completely dead body of Zline, as well as Nathan's body. Thane kneeled down beside him to check his pulse. He was still alive, but he need medical attention fast. Thane picked him up as well as the tomahawk off of Zline's corpse. As he ran off he heard C-Sec sirens in the distance. They would no doubt be here soon.

_**a/n: Well thats it folks, hope you enjoyed the chapter,and who guessed that I would knock out the one and only Garrus Vakarian. Just a reminder that next chapter is the end of the "prologue" of this story, so we will be official jumping in ME1 as of Chapter 12. But do not fret as the next chapter will include good ol Nathan West in a storyline that intersects with ME1. Lots of action, violence, and getting drunk, as well as meeting another character from the ME universe. Feel free to leave guesses with your reviews, but for now**_

_**CallsignReaper01 out**_


	11. Chapter 11

**_a/n: Hello all readers and welcome to the next chapter of the story. I'll be quick with this note because god knows you are bored with them. I would like to announce that I have acquired myself a beta reader. The wonderfully talented and amazing Kraidle has started beta reading my chapters. They will be more gramatically correct from now on. Now you know that im always one to plug a good story now and again, but believe me when I say you should read this guys story Mass Effect: Vindication. Positively one of the best oc stories I have ever read. After you finish reading this, you will go read that, or I WILL KILL THE HOSTAGES! A little dark humor before a chapter always helps, enjoy._**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 11: Changes, Realizations, and Preparations<strong>

_beep...beep...beep_

_"How is he doing, doctor?"_

_beep...beep...beep_

_"He is doing well, the nerve endings have repaired themselves, and adapted to the new hardware."_

_beep...beep...beep_

_"What of the implants?"_

_beep...beep...beep_

_"Suprisingly no damage came to them, sir. He should be up in a few hours."_

_beep...beep...beep_

_"Good, how long will it take for the recovery."_

_beep...beep...beep_

_"After he wakes up, we'll give him a quick check up and he should be fine."_

_beep...beep...beep_

_"Excellent, the boss required him to do work."_

* * *

><p>Nathan woke up with a volt. As he looked around he saw that he was in a hospital room, by the looks of it, still on the Citadel. It was then he realized that he couldn't see out his right eye. His mind shot back to the last thing he remembered.<p>

'I pushed Thane out of the way. Zline shot me in the eye'

Just then a Salarian doctor walked in.

"Ahh you've woken up. How are you feeling"

Nathan, who felt exceptionally sarcastic replied "Well my back's a little sore, my legs are asleep, oh and yeah I can't see out of my right eye"

At that point William walked in smiling, "Don't hassle the good doctor Nathan, he did in fact save your life after all"

"Irritation, common symptom of adaptation process, problem remedied momentarily", the doctor said as he brought up his omni-tool

After a few seconds Nathan saw a bright light flash in his previously dark eye. Following that were words saying 'neural connection established. uploading visual feedback'

It was then that Nathan regained vision in his right eye. Suprised by this Nathan brought his hand up to his eye to feel that it was purely metal as well as a part of the side of his face.

"Synthetic eye. Nifty huh?", William remarked

"I guess", Nathan responded still feeling it

"Simple design, increases depth perception, though very expensive. You are very lucky to have such a wealthy benefactor"

Nathan looked to William, "Will?"

He responded, "Hell no! you're in enough debt to me, that was on the bosses tab"

"Well it's nice to know you cared Billy"

William rolled his eyes.

"Need to run additional test before you are cleared, very simple, very fast"

"Alright, lets do it"

* * *

><p>Nathan and William walked out of the hospital an hour later and headed towards William's office.<p>

"How's the eye doing?", William asked

"It's weird, I know I should have some mental shock to losing my eye and part of my face, but the synthetic eye feels normal like I didn't even lose the old one" Nathan said as he reached up and touched his eye. The feeling was truly odd to him. His eye was and part of his head was gone but he felt as if nothing ever changed.

"Good, the boss got his money's worth then", William replied as they walked through the market area near the hospital. This area of the Citadel didn't look quite familiar to him, but then again he never did do much off hand exploring in Mass Effect 1 of the Citadel so he wouldn't know.

They made their way through the dense crowd of people browsing the many kiosks and stores of the area, when they passed a C-Sec outpost. Nathan looked at William and asked, "By the way, did you get that C-Sec warrant off me?"

"You give me too little credit Nathan..." William replied as they passed a Sirta Foundation store

"I give credit where credit is due", Nathan interuptted sarcastically as he basked in the glory of his comeback

"Before I call you on that bullshit, I was saying that the boss does have contacts high up in the Presidium"

"Who would that be?" Nathan asked

"A Spectre"

"No shit!" Nathan responded, somewhat taken back by William's response

"Yep, an Asari spectre by the name of Tela Vasir" William answered back with what Nathan noticed as a bit of hesitation

Nathan squinted at the sound of that name. He had heard it before, either in his travels, or out of something else but he couldn't put his finger on it.

'Damn name sounds familiar, starting to get some deja vu out of this shit'

Nathan responded, "When does someone with the money to beam a person from a different universe give out sources names that easily"

William was quiet for a bit before responding, "When you're the one to give him the source."

Nathan caught on to William's reoccurring tone and replied, "I knew I felt a personal bond"

William stuttered a bit before saying, "What No! this is purely buisness"

Nathan smiled, "Now its my turn to call you on your bullshit"

Defeated, William replied ,"Fuck fine, she and I are in a relationship"

"HA!" Nathan smirked basking in his victory

"Fuck you man!" William spat back defensively

"Ain't that her job?" Nathan said laughing

William facepalmed and then smiled as they exited the market area and entered the building which Nathan pressumed was his office. The walked through the lobby and towards the back wall which held the elevators.

"Oh now, since were on the topic of jobs, I believe you owe me a few", William said as he pushed the elevator button to go up.

"Hell, I only ever promised one", Nathan sighed as the elevator door closed on them. The elevator was significally faster then the ones on the Presidium, much to Nathan's suprise. Whoever the boss was appreciated the luxury of a faster elevator as much as he did.

"Either way, i'm calling this one in since your little 'witch hunt' is over" William remarked as the elevator door open much to Nathans suprise. They walked down the hallway towards William's office, while Nathan was still shocked about the elevator's speed

'Now why can't all Citadel elevators be like this. ...Shit!'

"Alright fine what do you need, someone dead?, shit blown up?, what?", Nathan replied as they walked into Williams office and sat down. William's office was decorated quite nicely with an abundance of art on the walls which resembled pieces that Liara's apartment contained in Mass Effect 2

"Actually all of the above. You're going to be taking down a gang that the boss wants gone here on the Citadel" ,William said as he leaned back in his chair

Nathan shrugged, "I'm going to need a lot more than just my usual loadout to take down an entire gang operation"

"That you will. As well as taking the liberty of making your arrows mod friendly, I also have hired you a partner to work with", William said

"You know I work fast-paced right?" Nathan replied

"Don't worry, so does he", William said as he turned to his omni-tool "Let our guest in Ms. Greene"

A few seconds later "Yes sir" came out of his omni-tool

All of a sudden Nathan heard loud thumps coming from the hall outside. They progressively got louder until they reached the door. They door opened and he walked in.

"Nathan West meet your partner, Urdnot Wrex"

...

Nathan, while having a minor heart attack from seeing another of his favorite Mass Effect characters of all time had a sudden realization at that moment.

'Wait a second, I have just been put on the mission to kill Fist and his thugs. This mission is how Wrex eventually joins Shepard and gets on the Normandy. That means I have a clear shot to make it on the Normandy. How fucking peculiar is that? Well no need to question fate.'

After a few more seconds Nathan also realized something.

'Hold on, in the game Wrex mentions that he gets the mission to kill Fist from the Shadow Broker... Holy shit I'm a damned idiot. How didn't I catch that with hint with Tela Vasir? Yeah some freakin assassin I am'

Nathan looks at William to see that he is wearing a suit with the same insignia's as the troopers from the Mass Effect 2 DLC.

'I...I have been working for the damn Shadow Broker for 2 years. I see the secrecy for it, as many people do not like him, but 2 freaking years? Definitely going to have to watch myself, I know the Shadow Broker's future intentions, and if i'm one of them, that ain't good'

Nathan mentally facepalms and returns to the conversation.

"You partnered me with a human? They're weak! He won't survive Fist's thugs!", Wrex exclaims

'Ahhh, Wrex's irresistible personality shows it self for the first time. How fucking charming'

"You need not worry about him Wrex. He may seem like a selfish jackass, but be assured he can hold his own"

'And you may seem like the Shadow Broker's bitch but... oh wait you are'

Wrex does the Krogan equivalent of a sigh as William continues to speak.

"Now your target is the scum known as Fist and his gang which are centered in the bar Chora's Den in the Wards. Before you think of just bum rushing the place, know that he has 2 warhouses on the Citadel that need 'special attention' as well. They'll be guarded, no doubt heavily, but thats why I have both of you. Also know that they will probably have a substantial amount of red sand there too. Make sure you clear the place quickly when you take care of it. I don't want 2 high as fuck hitmen to take down Fist. "

"It'll get done as long as this human doesn't get in my way," Wrex responds as he makes his way out of the office

Nathan rolls his eyes and gets up as William responds, "Good and one more thing," he says as his gaze rests on Nathan

"Make sure not to get caught, I would rather avoid another incident wit C-Sec" William remarks calmly

"One time... one time Billy!"

* * *

><p>Wrex and I enter the first availible skycar as we leave the building. The first warehouse is all the way across the Citadel so its going to at least take us awhile to get there.<p>

We sit in the skycar in absolute silence, not that I was expecting any conversation. Mass Effect 1 Wrex was pretty quiet unless you spoke to him. But still even with everything that was just revealed to me I couldn't brush off the aura of akwardness in the car. I needed to break the ice.

"So..." I ask nervously

"Spare me the conversation human, I don't know how humans are but Krogan don't prefer small talk" Wrex interrupts

Well damn! Can't say I didn't half expect that, but really? 'human'? Come on. If were going to work together on the Normandy, thats going to get on my nerves. Then again it already is, so better I remedy the situation now. But then again there is always the possibility of Wrex 'accidentally' throwing me out of the skycar.

"Alright, alright, first of all my name's not 'human'?, it's Nathan, ok. You don't see me going around and naming people off by their species. and what the hell is wrong with talking? I at least want to know something about the guy that's going to be fighting along side me, like maybe if he's going to shoot me in the back or not?"

Ok even an hardened assassin has to be scared of the possibility of being thrown out of a skycar at god knows what height by a ticked off Krogan Battlemaster, right? I look at Wrex who is slowly turning to me. Shit, out the skycar I go. But instead he lets out a small laugh.

"Gotta say that it takes a quad to yell at a Krogan in such a enclosed space like that. Maybe it won't be that bad to work with you after all. But lets see if that quad will hold in combat. then maybe we'll talk."

Classic Wrex ehh. More a man of action then of words. The again he is Krogan, so maybe Krogan of action? Anywho I check my omni-tool again for the location of the first warehouse. Looking at it, I realize that I have an unread message. Since were not in any type of hurry I open it.

_From: unknown sender_

_Nathan, I have recently gotten news of your recovery from the incident during our fight with Dralla Zline. When I got you to the hospital, your accomplice William was waiting there and said that he would take care of it. How he caught wind that I was to bring you there, I cannot say, but do stay cautious, his motives may not be what they seem.I have to say in all truthfulness though that I am relieved for your recovery, not only as your mentor but as your friend. It has been quite the experience having traveled with you for the last few months, and it has taught me a lot about myself. Lessons that I will never forget._

_I apoligize for my abrupt departure, but for now our paths must split as I must continue to search for those who murdered my wife and you continue on, I know you will understand. I know our paths will meet again my friend, after my buisness is complete._

_May Amonkira, Lord of Hunters guide your bullet toward those who deserve it,_

_Thane_

I give a smirk to the message. We will definetely meet again my friend, if I don't die first. I close my omni-tool, as the skycar lands. We walk out onto the street as the Citadel is turning to its night cycle. This ward is one of the less populated ones, so there are only a few people wandering around still.

We walk for awhile before we reach the warehouse designated by William. As we overlook the place we see that his intel was spot on. A group of 5 guarding the front entrance to the warehouse as well as intervals of 2 patrolling around it. But the volume coming from inside the building sounds like there is a lot more mercs to deal with than just the ones out here.

"How do you want to take this?" I say, expecting Wrex to go ape-shit and charge the guards

But he just stands there and replies "We wait until the guards shift ends then we catch them by suprise"

I look at him confused

"What, do you have a better plan?" He asks

I slowly reply "No, its just that I've never seen Krogan as ones for a strategical approach"

"Only a fool would rush in there blindly and expect to come out alive!" Wrex exclaims

"We're going to need a helluva alot of luck to pull this off" I respond

Wrex laughs again "Who needs luck when I have ammo?"

I let out a laugh, when I realize something. Wrex just stole Grunt's line from his loyalty mission from Mass Effect 2. Not that it matters because it still sounded awesomly epic.

Well I got the future leader of the Krogan race at my side and shitload of mercs in between me and my ticket to the Normandy. Result?... Blood... a WHOLE LOT OF BLOOD.


	12. Chapter 12

**_a/n: Wow it has been awhile, but I am back with another chapter. To explain my leave of absence, I had to take care of some personal issues the past couple of weeks, and have had no time at all to type. I apologize for the wait but I am here now._  
><strong>

**_Now over the time I have written this story I have accumulated a massive amount of support, for which I am thankful. Now I want to give back to you guys a little something for your support. I will be having a special 100 review celebration, that will entail a humorous escapade with Nathan and the Normandy crew. Now I don't know how good a comedy writer I am but with some luck you'll get a few pity laughs from it._**

**_Also I have just come to find out that the new Mass Effect 3 DLC adding to the ending will come out this Tuesday. I'm excited as many of us are but I am hesitant to see if Bioware has successfully unscrewed us over. Thought?_**

**_Now before I begin I have to thank my beta reader Kraidle again for looking over my stuff for the things I'm to lazy to fix. You my readers should go check out Kraidle's story now. If you don't, I'll make sure to use the starchild/RGB ending for my story, IM Freakin Serious hahahahaha. Enjoy!_**

**Chapter 12: Krogan Mentalities**

Well I gotta say for a guy that plays servant for a lumbering monster that controls the galaxies biggest wealth of information, William really knows how to put a new spin on an old classic hunting bow. I mean with the variety of arrow mods I have for the bow, as well as the automatic retrieval system I have for the quiver, I could give Hawkeye a run for his money. Poison, explosive, armor-piercing, hell even ones with remote cameras. William sure did put in the works, pretty impressive for a Yahg sex slave.

Wrex and I wait in cover outside the warehouse waiting for the next guard rotation. Thanks to my remote camera arrow, I know now that there are at least 10 guys inside the warehouse. Six of whom, are engrossed in what seems to be an intense Skyllian Five game. From what else I could tell, there are 3 Humans, 4 Batarians, 2 Turians, and a Krogan. Not to bad, since I do have the awesome Krogan Battlemaster, and future leader of the Krogan race with me.

The guards on the outside are met by their replacements, and Wrex gives me a nod. It was his idea that we take them all out at the same time to avoid dectection. I don't exactly remember Wrex being one for slow and stealthy actions over a run and gun mentality, but his plan does have a point. If we did just rush that place, we would have been dead within a few seconds.

I pull out my pistol as well as my tomahawk, and Wrex, well Wrex pulls out his shotgun. I guess the time for discretion is over. We run up to the group under the cover of darkness and open fire. Wrex immediately obliterates 2 of the guards with his shotgun, while I pick off a well aimed pistol shot at one guard, and quickly chop at the neck of one more with my tomahawk.

After the two guards fall dead to the floor, I see the 5th guard start sprinting to the door. Wrex is still occupied with his two corpses, so I quickly grasp my tomahawk and launch it flying towards his head. The tomahawk hits its mark, as it enters the humans head right before he reaches the door. I breath a sigh of relief as there seems to be no reaction to the firefight from inside the building. But then I notice that the door that the now dead guard was running to was motion activated. As the body fell towards the door, the door opened revealing to those inside one of their co-workers falling dead to the ground with a tomahawk in his head.

"Shit!"

Wrex and I fly into cover as the whole of the warehouse opens fire on us.

"I thought humans were suposed to be the discreet ones!" Wrex exclaims as the glass windows start to shatter around us

"Of all the times you have to call out a human stereotype, it has to be now."

I start blindly firing over the cover with my pistol while Wrex does the same with his shotgun.

"Fuck!" More bullets come spraying through the window

"You got a plan Wrex?"

Wrex's body becomes enveloped in blue, as he looks over to me.

"Yeah start shooting them!" he yells as he throws a blast of biotic energy at two of the guards, knocking them over

"Good enough for me?"

I dislodge the tomahawk from the corspes skull and grip my pistol as I vault through the window. I rush the closest guard who happens to be a human. When I finally reach him he tries hit me with his assualt rifle. I quickly grab the rifle with my pistol hand and pull it toward me causing the guard to follow suit. The rifle drops out of his hand, and I swiftfully use the disadvantage of his stumbiling to pull him up in front of me. I flip him around and wrap my tomahawk hand around his neck, using his as a meatshield.

I open fire on a turian and two batarians who start peppering their collegue i'm using as a shield with bullets. Hmmm, I guess they weren't friends. After a few seconds the shield on the human goes out and the body becomes heavier as it goes limp. I manage to kill the batarian with a well placed shot to the head but the turian decides to stay under cover. As I close in with the meatshield I look to Wrex who seems to be enjoying the action. At the moment he seems to have chokeslammed a batarian in to the ground while simultaneously blowing apart two humans with his shotgun.

I look back over to the turian, who has been joined by another one of the batarians, who have started to open fire. I fire a few shots at the turian, whose shields seem to be holding. My meatshield won't last much longer, so I decide to throw what left of the mutilated body at the turian and focus my attention on the batarian. I fire a few shots at him and close the distance, lodging my tomahawk straight into his neck. His body falls to the floor, as he bleeds out.

All of a sudden I feel myself get tackled to the ground, and Batarian blood wash over my face. I look up to see the culprit, the turian who I had thrown the corpse into. He aims his Avenger assualt rifle at my head, and snickers. But the reflexes I honed by training with Thane step in and I use tomahawk to hack at his knee. As he howls in pain, I regain my composure and get back up. I swing my weapon at the turians head for a killing blow, but he blocks it by grabbing the hilt and knocking it out of my hand. He then launches his other hand to sock me in the face, which I grab, twist, and use the momentum to swing his over my back onto the ground. I quickly reach for a weapon, but I trip as the turian grabs my leg. He uses the advantage to climb on top of me and starts choking me.

My vision starts to blur as the turian continues to choke me. I can barely reach his face with my hands, he has better reach. I look around the floor for something to hit him with. I see my tomahawk a few feet away from me. With a last gasp of breath I push the turian up with my feet long enough for me to grab my tomahawk and I grab it and swing it at the turian face. It collides with his face and a flurry of blue blood falls onto my face. The turian lets out a blood curteling scream and falls over grabbing his face. Feeling bad for this guy that was just doing his job, I get up wiping most of the blood off of my face, and finish off the turian with a quick shot to the head with my pistol.

I look over to Wrex who has a dead turian on the ground next to him as well as a krogan charging at him. Wrex doesn't seem to mind it as he turns towards the krogan and blows up his face at point blank with his shotgun. Wrex then turns to me noticing the remainder of the turian and batarian blood on me . He gives me a accepting nod as he throws me an explosive.

I walk over to one of the support beams for the warehouse and place the explosive on it. The trigger mechanism itself isn't that complicated of a device to work, basically a digital timer. I set the timer to 5 minutes and then turn to Wrex who has done the same, and we take our leave.

As we fly off in the skycar back towards William's office, I hear the explosion in the distance. Cool guys don't look at explosions, so I don't look.

I look over to Wrex who is sitting in silence.

"So how did I do?"

Wrex looks over to me "You did good..."

Yes!

"...for a human."

'Damn had my hopes up for a second.'

"Hey I killed as many of those guys as you did."

Wrex smirks "Yeah, and you almost got killed by the turian too."

Of course he had to see that.

"Besides if you hadn't broken our cover, I would have killed more than you." Wrex says flatly

Wait a second, is he trying to challenge me? Hmmm, I'll take the bait. Why not?

"Is that a challenge?"

"It's not a challenge, if you know you're going to win." Wrex replies

Yeah, it's a challenge.

"Alright big shot, tell you what: the next warehouse we raid, we'll keep track of our kills. If I win you give me a compliment."

Wrex smirks and asks "And what do I get when I win?"

"Well if you win, I'll get you a round of ryncol afterwards."

Wrex thinks this over for a bit then responds "Deal."

* * *

><p>I walk into my room that William provided me. It's well over midnight on the Citadel, and I'm exhausted. The room itself is pretty spartan. A bed nightstand, a dresser, and a personal terminal.<p>

I drop my equipment and turn on the terminal to listen to while I clean up. As the display comes alive I realize that the program is the last thing I'd ever want to watch, the Westerlund News.

_Hello Citadel this is Khalisah al-Jilani with an urgent special report._

And with the most annoying and racist reporter ever, suprise, suprise. I begin to turn it when I see something that stops my hand.

_We have recieved reports that only 24 hours ago, Geth reemerged from the Perseus Veil and have attacked the human colony of Eden Prime. There..._

I see the pictures of the damage on Eden Prime, and immediately turn off the terminal, I don't need to see anymore. I enter the bathroom and hop in the shower to get the remainder of this dried up blood off of me.

I exit the shower and dry myself off. I slip on some boxers as I walk toward the sink. As I reached the sink, I look in the mirror. I haven't looked in a mirror for at least a few months, so what stares back at me suprises me.

It definitely looks like I've aged a lot. I grew a substantial amount of facial hair during the few months I spent with Thane. Personally I like the look, but to be professional I should shave it off. I then focus the attention to my synthetic eye. I look at it in the mirror for what seems like a while. Part of my eye as well as my face was blown clear off and I feel nothing. I mean this is not some broken bone or bruise, my fucking eye and part of my face was blown off, and feel nothing. I mean have I lost that much of myself.

Two years I've been here, here in this universe I thought was a game, through means I don't even understand. Two years ago I was a college student mourning my parents death. Now I'm a criminal, an assassin, a fool played by the Shadow Broker to do his bidding. And for what? To avenge my parents death? Hell I don't even know if it has anything to do with this anymore. William tells me its Cerberus, but there's just too many holes there. I know there's something he's not telling me, something he's hiding.

But now there are more pressing concerns. Eden Prime occured about a day ago, so by now Shepard must be on her way here. Being with Wrex assures that i'll met her, if I haven't screwd the canon that much by now. But it doesn't really assure that I'll get on her crew. I mean if Garrus already knows who I am then i'm bound to have a reputation around here, though its probably not the best one. How the hell do people even know me here. I'm not one to socialize unless provoked and i'm sure that i'm not that bad of an assassin. Must be Aria's advertising or something like that. I hope she won't get to angry about the fact that i'll be gone a few more months.

Alright back on topic. I really do hope that Shepard decides to pick me up before she does Garrus. That will be somewhat of an awkward reunion. Well once that comes I'll handle it. Now how am I going to hide this eye of mine? I'm not really discreet when someone can point me out as 'That guy with the synthetic eye'. Eyepatch? No, I need to see out of the eye. A mask? Nah, to concealing. Sunglasses? Possible, very very possible.

A quick look through my bag reveals a new pair of aviators I picked up on Illium for 50 credits.

...

Not bad, not bad. These aviators do look quite nice on me. Gives me that kind of dectective look.

Alright Nate, two years you've waited for this moment, two years you have prepared. You have the chance to mold reality for the better, remember that.

* * *

><p>"Alright you ready Wrex."<p>

"Yeah, ready for that ryncol you promised me." Wrex says as he gives a overconfident smirk

"We will see about that Wrex."

This warehouse was slightly bigger than the last one, and with more guards. We maintained stealth way better than last time, taking out all the guards patrolling the outside quietly. Mostly by choking them out one by one or hitting them with an arrow to their unarmored heads. I slipped one of my arrows through a broken window to find out that there was around 20 or so guards in there of varying species. The most dangerous being the 3 krogans that sat isolated from the others.

"Around 20 guards, 3 of them krogan."

"Sounds like one hell of a fight." Wrex gives a huge grin

I'll never understand why krogan enjoy this so much.

Wrex glares at me again "Nathan, whats with the eyewear?" He says motioning to my aviators

"There called glasses and I thought my synthetic eye would be to noticeable so I got these to cover them."

Wrex shrugs " I don't understand you humans. On Tuchanka, having an injury like that would give you respect among the clan, probably some mating request to."

The thought of krogan mating now fresh in my head, I change the subject back on our goal.

"How do you want to go through with this. I don't think its a great idea just to charge in?"Wrex sighs "Well I think thats something we can agree on."

I look around trying to gather an idea from the environment but get nothing. As I bring my hand up to my temple to think, my hand touches my synthetic eye. At that moment it hits me. I scroll through the interface of the eye and neurally pick one of the options. The tint of the enviremont turns from the darkness of the night to green as the interface states 'Initiating night vision'. I turn to Wrex.

"Wrex do you have a night vision option on your helmet?" I motion to the industrial light inside the warehouse.

Wrex gives a little smirk "The little pyjak has a brain after all." As he puts on his helmet

I roll my eyes as I bring up my omni-tool. As I had hoped, the warehouse lighting was not privledged enough to have any security protocols on it. I grab one of my explosive arrows and stick it into the edge of the door. We get out of the blast zone and I pull up my omni-tool again. I nod to Wrex as I shut off the lights and trigger the explosive.

We rush in through the smoke to see the guards disoriented and fumbling for their weapons. The initial blast of the explosion and the shrapnel killed 3 guards, a Turian, and two Batarians.

"Looks like i'm already up 3!" I announce triumphantly

I hear Wrex murmer some Krogan obscenity as we cut down half of the guards with a combination of gunfire and biotics. What seems to remain are humans, 2 turians, and a krogan unfortunately. We move into cover as most of the remaining guards have managed to reach their helmets.

I manage to hit one of the turians with my bow. Since his shield isn't calibrated to block anything with a velocity that low, the arrow hits its mark on the turians neck as he panickedly tries to recover himself as he starts to bleed out. I look over to Wrex who has just slaughtered 2 humans, and the other turian. He has now caught up as we are both at 7 kills. I need to hurry up now before I start losing.

My body flies back at least 10 feet as I hit the floor with a thud. I look up to see the krogan who unfortunately not Wrex pick me up and slam me into the wall. My glasses fall off as the krogan starts to choke me out. He begins to chuckle underneath his mask. He is fully armored so I can't even kill him with my tomahawk. I need to get his helmet off. As I start to lose breath, I panic, shoving my foot into his quad. Even with the armor on, he bends over in pain and starts to yell. I instinctively pull off his helmet, and grab my tomahawk. In a spur of bloodrage the Krogan tries to charge at me. I quickly dodge as he rushes past me and hits the wall. I turn around and by instinct aim for where Zaeed mentions is the krogan weak spot, their headplate. I shove my tomahawk into the back of the plate as the krogan cries a shriek of pain. Half of the headplate falls off as I follow up with a swing to the krogans exposed neck. The tomahawk connects and the krogan falls with a thud to the floor.

I pick up my tomahawk and my glasses that miraculously don't have a dent on them, and look back at the warehouse to see that all the other guards are dead. The realization falls on me that I lost.

"Shit"

I look at Wrex who is giving me a blank stare.

"Well I guess I'm buying you some ryncol then"

Wrex replies with a dark tone "How did you know about our headplates?"

"Spend some time on Omega, you learn some things"

"Do not mention that to anyone else, ever!" Wrex states angrily

"You don't have to worry about me telling anyone. But if I feel threatened by a Krogan there's no guarantee that I won't use it"

Wrex grunts " If I see that thing swinging anywhere near me..."

I smirk " I got it, I got it problem"

A little while later we finish setting the explosives and blow the place. As we head into the skycar, Wrex turn towards the direction of Williams office.

"Where are you going?"

"We finished the job, we can get Fist tomorrow" Wrex replies

"Yeah but I haven't held up my half of our bet"

Wrex looking confused answers "Seriously?"

"Yeah, so lets head over to Chora's Den. We can do a little recon on Fist, as I get you that ryncol"

Wrex chuckled "Human honor, didn't think that existed"

* * *

><p>Chora's Den looked the same as it did in the game, except it was real life. I ordered Wrex some of the ryncol, and he chugged that stuff down like a pro. Eventually through a conversation I learned that Wrex knew Kravik from Omega. Said that he was from Clan Urdnot as well, and was impressed by the way the hard ass went. Eventually the topic of the krogan bouncer edged its way into our conversation. Wrex decided to go question him while I was concentrated on drinking my drink and watching the asari that were pole dancing.<p>

After awhile I heard Wrex storm out of the bar. I got up to go after him but then heard a voice call my name.

"Nathan West?" The distinctive voice of Jennifer Hale collided with my ears.

"Who wants to know?" As I turn around nervously hoping that she isn't going to have a gun pointed at my face

"Commander Angela Shepard, I need to ask you a few questions?"


	13. Chapter 13

_**a/n: Ok ok people I realized that I haven't put out a chapter in a seriously long time. I apoligize for this but a lot of stuff has happened. Mostly family related and the grind of life, but also due in part to a couple things.**_

_**1- The Extended Cut DLC which I must say is a pretty good improvement on the old endings. I'm not saying it's perfect but I mean come on people you can't dwell on it forever. Besides you still got the awesome ending these fanfiction writers come up with. Oh and no spoilers or nothing but you cant say you weren't satisfyed with how you got option 4. I you do I call you out on your shenanigans.**_

_**2- The Dark Knight Rises whiches I gotta say freakin amazing. Go watch it. Now.**_

_**Ok since Ive given you my excuses for my lateness i'm going to tell you that this chapter isn't proofread due to time constraints. So for all of my spelling nazi fans if I do have any, get over it.**_

**Chapter 13: The Fun Begins**

"Nathan West" the distinctive voice of Jennifer Hale sounds from behind me.

I slowly start turning my body towards the source of the sound hoping that through some horrible canon change, Shepard isn't here to arrest me. As I turn I notice that many of the bar's patron's are giving me weird looks now. The fact that their all looking at me in the first place, isn't good. But now that Shepard just said my name pretty loudly and the fact that Nathan West isn't the most liked name among criminals, them all looking at me means something bad is going to happen.

Quickly thinking up a lie, I reply "Sorry ma'am, my name is Clint".

I turn fully to see Shepard giving me a confused look. Besides having black hair instead of being a redhead, she is basically the default for female Shepard even down to her light onyx armor with its shiny N7 on it. Beside her is the 22nd century version of Elvis that is Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko on her left and the questionably xenophobic tomboy Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams on her right.

"Look i'm Commander Angela Shepard and I suggest that you listen to what I have to ask, " Shepard replies agressively.

Seeing as that was the definite renegade answer to this conversation, it has attracted some more unwanted attention as I see the bouncers come walking towards me.

"Look ma'am, I'm not the man your looking for, sorry" I swiftfully get up and make a beeline for the door.

I see the bouncers still following me as I exit the establishment. I walk about 10 feet before I hear a voice yell "Hey you".

I calmly turn around to see the two bouncers; a turian, and a rather large human walking towards me.

"How can I help you gentleman" I reply in a polite manner.

"The owner of the bar would like a word with you" the Turian says

I sense the demeanor of the two change from calm to aggressive as they close in on me. As the human reaches me he extends his arm to try to grab me. I react by grabbing the arm in mid-flight and using its momentum to swing said human into a clothesline with my arm. The human now dazed on the ground I turn my attention on the Turian who is swinging his leg at me. I counter by grabbing it at the ankle with my left hand as my right elbow comes down on his kneecap. The hit registers as I hear the distinct noise of a bone breaking as well as the Turians scream of pain. I use this moment to trip his other leg causing him to fall. I turn back to see that the human is starting to get back up now. I quickly swing my leg over, causing it to collide with the humans skull knocking him out. I turn back to the Turian who has just hit the ground and I send a fist directly into the temple of his head knocking him out as well.

Hmm, about 10 seconds, not to bad.

At that moment I hear the noticeable sound of guns being taken out behind me. I turn away from the incapacitated bouncers to see Shepard and crew aiming their weapons at me.

"I think it would be best if you answer those questions now, " anger now present in Shepard's voice

I sigh and reply "Ok, ok, i'll answer your damned questions. Just put the guns down"

"How do we know you won't run off again?" Ashley asks

I answer plainly "One, you're not here to arrest me or you would have done so already, and two, I don't have any bouncers after me anymore after somebody decided to give me away in the bar. If you didn't know, Nathan West isn't exactly the most liked name in the underworld"

Shepard gave a look to both Ashley or Kaiden and they lowered their guns.

"I guess... I could have been more discreet about that" Shepard said

"It's no problem I guess... You did make my job a little bit more interesting now

"For a guy that wears sunglasses indoors you've got a weird idea of interesting,buddy" Kaidan breaks in

I smirk "No, what's interesting is why you insist on looking like the 22nd century version of Elvis"

I get a chuckle out of Shepard and Ashley even cracks a little smile.

"So what can I help the hero of Elysium out with on this fine day?"

"Well we've come to the attention that your going after Fist" Shepard says

"What makes you say that? I smirk

"Cut the crap West,and tell us what we need to know!" Ashley angrily says as she squares up to me.

I take a cautious step back as Shepard turns to calm Ashley down

"Damn, Chief calm he hell down, I was kidding. Can't take a freaking joke, can you?" I reply as I regain my posture

Kaidan squints and asks "How dis you know she was a Gunnery Chief?"

I shrug "Well I know many things Lieutenant,one being Alliance ranks and insignia. Another being that we have a common interest in finding Fist"

Shepard opens her mouth to speak but I continue to speak "This interest being that you need to question Fist before I kill him. You want to question Fist because of his recent betrayal of the Shadow Broker, and alliance with Saren, whom your investigating."

As I finish I see Shepard and friends amazed by my wealth of information.

"So, how'd I do?" I ask

After a few seconds Shepard sighs "What happened to things be confidentential and private?"

I give another slight smirk as I reply "Well Commander I can promise you that this isn't common knowledge. But having knowledge is pivotal in my line of work you know."

"So are you willing to help us then?" Shepard asks

I pretend to give it some thought before I answer "Sure, but I would like your help with something first?" I ask

Ashley is the first to react as she rolls her eyes and replies "Oh here we go!"

I turn to her "I'm sorry ma'am, I seem to be at a disadvantage here, your name is?"

Shepard answers for her "This is Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, and Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko"

I nod as Shepard turns back to me "Now what is this favor your asking us?" she asks cautiously.

"Simply put, my Krogan compatriot who has is suppose to be accompanying on this mission, has gotten himself stuck down at the C-Sec offices. I just ask that we go and get him since this is his job to" I say fully aware of where Wrex had gone to

"By stuck, you wouldn't mean arrested, do you?" Shepard asks

"Not exactly arrested, more as in taken in for questioning. Seeing a Krogan on the Citadel in the first place is out of the ordinary. You add the fact that he has a few weapons on him as well as the Krogans fabulous reputation of being a 'peaceful', I wouldn't blame C-Sec for being cautious"

"He does have a point" Kaidan says backing me up

Shepard changes her stature putting her hand up to her chin.

"Give me a minute to think about it"

Shepard thinks this over as I hide the unconscious bodies in a nearby dumpster with Kaidan. We finish and head back over to Shepard who is talking with Ashley. They both turn to me.

"Fine, we'll go get your Krogan" Shepard responds

"This better not be a trap!" Ashley exclaims

"Going up against a N7 operative and 2 trained Alliance soldiers in close quarters combat. Gunny, I maybe eccentric but I ain't no idiot"

Ashley grunts as we start our walk toward C-Sec.

...

A few minutes later we enter the elevator that leads down to C-Sec. After about a minute of silence, Kaidan speaks up.

"So West, what's up with your weapons? I mean I'm not questioning your ability as an assassin but your weapons don't seem that top of the line" he says

" Well Lieutenant its not the weapon that counts its how you use it, and let's just say I know how to use my weapons. "

Kaidan shrugs and focuses on my bow " But why use a weapon that hasn't has a practical military use for 600 years?"

I smirk at his ignorance to my weapon. "Well don't be fooled, this ain't no museum piece, it definetely has its modern touches. As for why I use it you'll just have to see for yourself"

As he nods the elevator lands on the floor. We walk through the main floor of the complex and I immediately notice that I have a million pairs of C-Sec eyes on me. I keep a casual pace knowing they have no proof to convict me of anything. We keep walking and as I expected we come upon Wrex who is arguing with a group of C-Sec officers. As we approach the officers disperse and Wrex approaches us.

"Couldn't have been a little more discreet Wrex?" I blurt out sarcastically

Wrex gives me a disaproving grunt as he looks at me then Shepard and her crew.

"Who are these other humans?" Wrex asks

"Barla Von sent them. Their looking to take down Saren" I reply

Wrex shrugs and replies "Then it looks like we have a common goal then human."

I give a smirk at Wrex's 'don't give a fuck' attitude.

"Enlighten me." Shepard says

Oh come on, I just fucking explained this whole thing to her 10 minutes ago. Damn you canon plot line!

Just as Wrex is about to reply I burst out and interupt him getting a angered look from the Krogan.

"Saren paid Fist a hell of a lot of money to 'aquire' a Quarian that supposedly has evidence against him. To put it simply" I say

Shepard raises an eyebrow at me and replies " You seemed to have left that out earlier"

I give a reluctant smirk "Sorry Shep, I guess it's kinda a habit. I don't go all in on something if I don't know if i'm going to get anything back."

Shepard gives me a smug look.

I regain a serious stature replying "Ok thats seriuosly all I know now. Besides now you have an extra person helping you out now, albeit a Krogan"

Shepard gives me a death glare for a second then nods. " Fine, but don't pull that shit again." she says

Ah hell another renegade reply. I really hope this isn't a renegade Shepard, that would be... problematic.

Ok, did I seriously just make a Mass Effect pun in Mass Effect... that is really freaking weird.

We make our way out of C-Sec entering the elevator to the wards. With our group now numbering 5 in toatl, I notice that Shepard doesn't take into account that 3 man squad crap of the games. Hallejuh to that.

After another minute of agonizing silence in the elevator Kaiden speaks up.

"Commander what about that C-Sec investigator, Garrus right?" he questions

Oh shit. God damn it Kaidan.

I had totally forgotten about Garrus. Hopefully he's forgotten about me by now, though I probably left a sizeable bruise on his face. Well I guess i'll just have to see.

"Your right Kaidan. It would probably be best if we see him now. We need all the help and testimony we can get." Shepard replies

A few more uneventful yet agonizingly slow minutes later we exit the elevator and make our way to the clinic. As we walk I can't help but smile as my mind races like a little fangirls. Within the next minutes i'd be fighting side by side with the Commander Shepard. Albeit we were fighting thugs, but its still freaking Commander Shepard. Damn, is this how Conrad Verner feels 24/7?

We walk the final distance to the door of the clinic. I already have my hand gripping my pistol as well as my tomahawk knowing whats about to happen.

The door opens and I immediately notice Dr. Michiel's overly thick accent as she begs with a generic thug. I also see Garrus taking cover behind the wall as well. He looks at Shepard just as the thug interrogating the Doctor notices our group.

The thug barely gets a word off before Garrus picks him off. The clinic immediately errupts into gunfire as our group plus Garrus starts to shoot the thugs.

...

The fight goes uneventful as our sheer awesomeness overwhelms the thugs and we kill them with a minute. I notice Garrus who is suprised by my appearence as I turn and dislodge my tomahawk from one of those idiot thugs head. As I turn back around I feel the blunt force of a fist smack me in the face and I fall down.

I look up to see Garrus pointing his pistol straight at my head.

"There's no running this time West" Garrus says coldly

I watch as he places his finger on the trigger hoping that Shpeard is going to intervene.

"Garrus, he's with us!" Shepard says as a sudden flow of relief washes over me.

"Commander with all due respect, this man is a murderer, he needs to go down, innocent people are at risk." Garrus replies keeping his pistol aimed at me

"You put an innocent at risk when you shot that thug holding her hostage. Besides he has information that can help us take down Saren"

Garrus slowly lowered his pistol. "One wrong move and your dead West"

"Dully noted" I respond

Garrus nods and turns to the Doctor "I'm sorry Dr. Michiel, are you hurt?"

...

The conversation with goes as canon and soon we leave the clinic and start our walk to Chora's Den. I feel my cheek noticing the now apparent bruise on it. It stings but I have felt worse.

If like on cue Ashley speaks up. "Damn West, Vakarian gave you one hell of a bruise there."

Ashley as well as Garrus both give a chuckle to statement. I look over to see a almost faded bruise on the side of Garrus's face where I knocked him out.

I smile "Well I gotta admit he got me good. But at least this one won't last as long as the one I gave him that knocked him clear out" I motion to the spot on Garrus's face as he grunts in disaproval.

_**a/n: Ok yeah so this is only half of the Saren investigation I know. I have trolled you all. I'll try to get the next part up as soon as I can but I don't have an exact estimate of when its going to go up. But i'll tell you something, reviews also do speed up the process(wink wink). Thanks for reading.**_

_**CallsignReaper01**_


	14. Chapter 14

_**a/n: Hello readers and before you click away from this story due to a unfamiliar title, let me just say this is still the story of good ol' Nathan West and his adventures, just with a new title. Now before I begin this chapter, you know I have some annoucements to give.**_

_**1- School has started up again. Now before you come to conclusions and think that now i'm going to be posting even slower than I already was, let me just say that you WRONG. Point being that now I am more likely to be at a computer now for homework, essay's, and etc. So every now and then i'll be able push another chapter out of the story**_

_**2- You ever want to write a self-insert story in the Mass Effect Universe but don't know where to start. Well then read "**So You're In A Self Insert 3? : Resurrection" by CuHnadian. It gives some great insights on what makes a good self-insert, explained by him and a few other special guests from the SI community.****_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 14: Bar Fights, Why Assassins and Politics don't mix, and the Normandy<strong>

As our group approaches Chora's Den, everybody seems to get pretty serious, especially Shepard. Not that I'm suprised though, what seemed so enjoyable in the video game was completely different here. Here you realized that this was real life, not a game. That I'm with soldiers, a cop, and a mercenary, and that we were going to actually kill gang members. All this fresh in my head I stack up on the door. Shepard, Wrex, and Garrus on the left side of the door while Kaiden, Ashley, and myself situate on the right. Seeing as the door was only big enough to accomodate two people at a time I see Shepards reasoning behind this.

Shepard gives a quick 'ok' nod to everyone as her and Kaidan corner the final inches to the door. As it opens I fully expect Shepard to nail the first thug that comes into her sights with her pistol. But at that moment what suprised me was the aurora of blue energy that enveloped her and a second later threw the thug from his position behind the bar to the back wall signified with the distinctive noise of at least a few bones breaking.

Ok, I've seen some damned good biotics in my time here, but that, that was just scary. Well I think that defines what class she is, as that is definetely adept level biotics. Note to self, do not piss Shepard off. No scratch that, never piss Shepard off, EVER!

My moment of awe over, I rush in with Garrus. Us being the last two in, the rest of the squad has already spread out in different cover spots in the front of the bar. I take a few pot shots at a Batarian standing over by the stripper poles hitting him in the neck and stomach killing him, before ducking under cover next to Ashley behind the bar.

I take a peek over the railing of the bar and notice that the bar is way more crowded than I remember in the game. There was at least a good 20 people in there, far from the at most 10 in the game. Then again, that fiasco in the bar earlier wouldn't have made Fist any less suspicious.

Ashley and I both stand out of cover taking out at least 5 of the assholes in the process. What would have taken a little while longer with a 3 man squad has taken only about a few minutes as the thugs start to thin out around us. Shepard's snapping thugs like twigs with her biotics. Kaiden is also doing the same but to a lesser extent considering the fact that he is seemingly not trying to break anyones bones. Garrus is picking off thugs like a pro next to Wrex who's participating in activities I can only describe as 'messy'. While Ashley's handling the thugs on the right side of the bar, I quickly take notice of the turian on the opposite side of the bar who has made the mistake of coming within arm's length of me.

Backing up a little bit, I dash and vault over the bar kicking said turian in the chest on my dismount. I empty a round into his unshielded head, then turn to my left seeing a human rushing me foolishly. I quickly send a shot into his knee causing him to trip to the ground just to the side of me. The man grounded, I quickly finish him off with a swift chop to his neck with my tomahawk. I turn just in time to see another batarian approaching me and a salarian thug approaching Ashley outside her peripheral view. Before I know it I quickly give the batarian a kick to the groin and as he doubles over in pain I notice that my tomahawks already collided with the salarian thugs head just as Ashley turns to him.

The battle subsides as Ashley(splattered with fresh salarian blood) turns to me with a not so happy expression on her face.

"He,y asshole have you ever heard of friendly fire?" she yells, wiping the blood off her face.

Taking a defensive stance I reply. "I didn't even hit you!" I snap back at her defensively. "Hell, if I hadn't thrown that who knows what could have happened to you? Maybe you should be thanking me instead of trying to bite my head off."

"Fuck you!, I had things under control."

As I was about to point out how "in control" things looked, Shepard cuts into to our argument angrily. "Look, can you two lovebirds at least wait until after were done with our mission before you kill each other?"

Both of us grimacing at the idea of being "lovebirds", reluctantly turn to the Commander, sounding a simultaneous "Yes, ma,am."

Our tensions now lowered, Shepard leads us to the back hall of the establishment that leads towards Fist's office. As we enter through the first door we came upon the two warehouse workers. "Stop right there, don't come any closer" says one of the two frigtened men.

"Warehouse workers. All the real guards must be dead," Garrus says, reciting his in game line to the letter. That means that next comes Shepard's dialogue choice I think...

She tilts her head back towards the door we came in, saying, "You know, this would be a really good time to find somewhere else to work."

Wasn't that the paragon option? I'd have thought that the biotic bone crushing and the way she first treated me gave her away as a renegade. Then again, this is a real scenario and nobody is that black and white. I push the thought from my mind as we all watch the two workers make their way out towards the main floor. All that's left is Fist's office. As the doors open, I'm not even surprised to be greeted by his pair of auto turrets. Shepard on the other hand...

"Shit! Get down!" she roars as she ducks behind cover.

The rest of us rush behind tables or the corners of walls as the turrets continue to fire off round after round. I know they have to wind down at some point. We just need to be ready for it.

Eventually I begin to hear the guns winding down. We all take the opportunity to emerge from cover and concentrate all our fire on them, leaving the two in a heap of exploding circuitry. I quickly level my pistol at Fist who still is shakily holding his gun in our direction. With uncanny precision I shoot his hand, causing the gun as well as its screaming owner to drop to the floor.

"Ahhh shit don't kill me, I surrender," says Fist who is cradling his hand as we walk up to him.

Shepard responds to this by lifting him up via biotics and pointing her pistol at him menacingly. "Where's the quarian?" she asks, making it sound like an order and in a way it was. After all, we aren't giving this scum much of a choice.

"She's not here. I don't know where she is, that's the truth," Fist replies from his not so comfy position in midair.

"You know," I intervene making sure he sees my tomahawk swinging restlessly in my hand, "it wouldn't be to clever to lie right now Fist."

His face suddenly void of color at my comment, Fist begins talking at a rapid pace. "Wait, wait, I don't know where the quarian is, but I know where you can find her. The quarian isn't here, she said she'd only deal with the Shadow Broker himself."

Wrex catches how odd that sounds and turns to Shepard. "Face to face, impossible! Even we were hired through an agent," Wrex says, indicating me with a nod.

"Strike two, Fist" I say, toying with the safety off my pistol.

Shepard drops her biotic hold on him and Fist tenderly gets up, still cradling his hand "Okay, okay. Nobody meets the Shadow Broker, even I don't know who he really is."

No shit dumbass.

"She didn't know that though. I told her I'd set a meeting up. But she shows up it'll be Saren's men waiting for her"

Shepard grabs him with her hands this time. "Give me the location. Now!"

Garrus chimes in afterwards saying. "It would be better for your health, if you know what I mean."

"Here in the Wards, in the back alley by the markets. She's suppose to meet them right now, you can make it if you hurry. Now please don't have him kill me" Fist says nodding to me.

As soon as his mouth stops moving, Wrex pulls out his shotgun quickly blowing the gang leader a few feet back and killing him.

"Never said I would kill you, did I?" I reply to the dead mans question

As the noise settles down, Garrus yells "What are you doing?"

"The Shadow Broker paid us to kill him, I don't leave jobs half done." Wrex replies

Shepard angrily responds "We don't shoot unarmed prisoners."

As Wrex is about speak I interrupt "Not to intrude on your little discussion, but we do have more pressing issues to attend to right now."

Kaidan backing me up responds "Yeah if we don't get to that meeting, the Quarian is dead."

Shepard nodding in agreement leads our group back to the main bar area where low and behold even more thugs are waiting for us.

...

After an annoyingly boring shootout ( and by that I mean 6 trained badasses versus multiple unarmored punks) we exit the bar, practically sprinting through the alleys of the Wards. After a couple of minutes of running we come upon the stairs that overlook the spot where Tali's "deal" is going down.

What we see as we look down into the deal location is about what you can expect. As the plot entails the turian gets too fresh, and Tali calls the whole thing off, knocking two Salarian thugs on their asses with a grenade. Our group then engages the 3 would be assassins killing them in what was probably record time with the additional bonus of my tomahawk getting aquainted with said turian thug's headplate.

We make our way down the flight of steps, and as I pull my tomahawk out of the turian's corpse Tali approaches Shepard. "Fist set me up! I knew I couldn't trust him!" she says, burning with anger at her betrayal.

"Were you hurt in the fight?" Shepard asks as I walk over to the group. Now she's keeping her cool and prioritizing Tali over the data? Aww to hell with it, i'll just go with pargade, or renegon. I guess it depends which side she's on more. Wait... damn I did it again.

I shift my glance over to Tali. Hell, by now I've seen just about all the crew members in ME1 (excepting Liara) and I still can't get over how they are actually real.

"I know how to look after myself. But I do appreciate the help though. Who are you?" she responds, slightly confused at being rescued by 6 random gunmen... and women.

"I'm Shepard, I'm looking for evidence for an investigation on Saren."

Damn is it getting hot in here. It was cold in here just a second ago but now my face is really hot. Huh must be adrenaline or something.

"Then I have a chance to repay you for saving my life. But not here, we need to go somewhere else."

Garrus chooses this moment to cut in. "What about the human embassy? Your ambassador will want to see this anyway."

Damn am I fucking sweating. What the hell is going on!?

"Hey West, you alright?" says a voice who I think might be Kaidan

"Yeah, why?"

Kaidan points a finger at my face. "Well, you're looking red like a tomato, especially around the cheeks."

Shit i'm red too?

"I don't know man, must be a fever or something," I shrug nonchalantly, trying to play it off.

Kaidan gives me an understanding nod as Shepard tursd to all of us.

"Well it looks like were going to go to the embassy then. I don't want it to be overcrowded in there so i'll take Tali, Garrus, and Nathan." she says nodding to me

"Well it looks like were going to go to the embassy then. I don't want it to be overcrowded in there so I'll take Tali, Garrus, and West." She begins to issue orders to the other two Alliance soldiers. "Ashley, Kaidan, I want you guys to take Wrex to the Normandy. I have a feeling that we might need him. Contact me if something comes up."

Ashley and Kaidan both salute before walking with Wrex back towards C-Sec. Shepard leading Garrus, Tali, and I head in the opposite direction towards the Presidium,where I knew we'll be heading to meet one of my least favorite characters: Donnel Udina.

After a few minutes of walking it seemed like it got even hotter and I noticed my hands shaking a little bit.

"So, who are you?" says a voice. Turns out it was Tali's.

My hands start shaking a little more. "My...my name...is..is...Nate..Nathan. Yeah Nathan," I manage to mumble. What the hell? When did I start to mumble? I don't usually mumble!

"Ummm ok, well my name is Tali, nice to meet you."

"Y-yeah...you too."

WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING!?

Tali turns away quickly, obviously thinking about something.

...I just fucked that up, didn't I?

Soon enough we enter the embassy, and just as expected the layout is canon to the games. As soon as we enter, I start to get this uneasy feeling. I always thought this area looked boring but the quick glances from different politicians make things seem awkward. Was I seriously that noticeable? I mean I AM a damned assassin, meaning that I'm supposed to be discreet, but everyone seems to know who I am.

"Uhh Shepard, do you have any particular reason for me coming with you here?" I ask rubbing the back of my neck nervously

A slight smirk appears on her face as we pass the front desk. "Why? You scared West?"

I roll my eyes at her teasing and add, "No, but letting a man of my profession into a government building such as this might give off the wrong signals. I think you understand."

Shepard straightens up as we ascend the staircase to the human embassy. "Well our 'oh so humble' ambassador might want to ask you some follow up questions because you are an absolute wealth of information."

"Hmm alright then." I answer as we enter the human embassy.

As soon as we get in, I already feel Anderson giving me a look.

Udina with his back turned to us then begins his rant. "Your not making this easy on me Shepard. Firefights in the Wards, an all out assualt on Chora's Den. Do you know how many..."

Udina stops his rant as his eyes look at me. "Security... Shepard you brought..."

Shepard interupts him right as I was just about to make a run for the door..

"Nathan West is with us Ambassador. He helped us find the evidence against Saren." Shepard says

Udina still strung up says "How do you know he's not here to...?"

This time I inturrupt Udina. "What kill you? If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already" I give a dark smirk really hoping that this incident made Udina shit himself.

Calming down a little from my statement, Udina finally collects himself. "You better be careful Shepard. You know that Nathan West is one of the most dangerous men in the Terminus systems, if not the whole galaxy. I'd sleep with one eye open if you're keeping him around."

"I'm flattered." I say faking a smile.

Suddenly Anderson chimes in. "Shepards no idiot. If she needs West, she knows the risks."

"Yeah in all respects Ambassador, I think I can handle him." Shepard answers while giving me a smile.

Udina turning to Shepard says. "I sincerely hope your right Commander."

With that said Udina turns to Tali. "Who's this, a Quarian? What are you up to Shepard?"

Shepard again straigtens up and answers. "Making your day Ambassador. She has information linking Saren to the Geth."

Udina returns to his smug attitude and says. "Clearly. Maybe you should start at the beginning Ms...?"

Tali then responds. "My name is Tali. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

Dammit, why does it keep getting so hot?

"We don't see many quarians around here. Why did you leave the flotilla?"

Oh god. Quarian history lesson.

"I was on my Pilgrimage. My right of passage into adulthood."

Come on Shepard! Spare me this lecture I've heard a million times over!

"I've never heard of this before," Shepard says curiously.

Damn it Shepard, you ass!

Tali straightens up and launches into the explanation. "It is a tradition among my people..."

I open my mouth to try to summarize it but I find that my subcinscious isn't allowing me to talk.

What the hell talk mouth. Talk damn you.

I fail to speak as Tali continues.

"When we reach maturity we leave the ships of our parents and our people behind. Alone we search the stars, only returning to the flotilla when we have discovered something of value. In this way, we prove ourselves worthy of adulthood."

"Why don't you tell us what you found?" Shepard says, cutting that monologue mercifully short.

Tali shifts her body uncomfortably. "During my travels, I began hearing reports of geth. Since they drove my people into exile, the geth have not ventured beyond the Veil." She pauses for a moment before continuing on. "I was curious," she admits. "I tracked a patrol of geth to an uncharted world. I waited for one to get separated from its unit. Then, I disabled it and removed its memory core."

"I thought the geth fried their memory cores when they died. Some kind of defense mechanism," Anderson pipes in exactly how I remember.

"How did you manage to preserve the memory core?" Shepard says, nodding in agreement as she thinks about the Captain's point.

"My people created the geth. If you're quick, careful, and lucky, some small data caches can be saved. Most of the core was wiped clean, but I salvaged something from its audio banks," Tali explains, typing something into her omni-tool open the audio file up.

"Eden Prime was a major victory. The Beacon has brought one step closer to finding the Conduit," Saren voice emulates from the omni-tool.

Anderson voice interrupts the clip to state the obvious. "That's Saren's voice! This proves that he was involved in the attack."

"He said the Eden Prime brought him one step closer to finding the Conduit. Any idea what that means?"`Shepard asks nobody in particular.

"The Conduit must have something to do with the Beacon. Maybe it's some kind of Prothean technology?" Anderson muses with his hand to his chin.

"You mean like a weapon?" I ask, finally finding my voice and joining the conversation.

Anderson sends me a nod as Tali speaks back up. "Wait, there's more. Saren wasn't working alone."

As the audio file comes to life again, Saren voice is repeated followed by a voice that, unbeknownst to everyone else, belongs to Matriarch Benezia.

"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers"

"I didn't recognize that other voice. The one talking about the Reapers." Udina says, adding his own two cents to the mix.

Shepard rubs her neck wearily. "I feel like I've heard that name before."

Ahh shit. Now a Reaper lesson? Come on Shepard!

...

Finally after what seemed like hours of dialogue that I'd already known beforehand, we walk out of Udina's office. Our new destination is the Council now.

As we start walking, something important occurs to me. "Hey Shep," I say, grabbing her attention. "I can't say I think its a swell idea for me to go with you to the Council. I think the guards there will be a bit more...hostile towards me, you know?"

Shepard's response to my question is fairly quick. "You know I was just thinking the same thing. The main reason I brought you to the Embassy was to get a reaction out of Udina. The council might not take your arrival as kindly, even with all of us there to cover your ass."

Using scare tactics on your own politician? Hmph, well played Shepard, well played.

"So would you mind waiting over by the C-Sec docking bay? Anderson's ship is over there and I have a feeling that you'll be needing a new position soon... if you're interested that is?" she says, making the offer that I'd been waiting for. I'd almost forgotten that Shepard doesn't own the Normandy until she becomes a Spectre, in about, what? 20 minutes?

I give Shepard a faux smile. "I think I can spare some time. A change of scenery does the body well."

Shepard smiles back. "Good, I suppose you know the place right?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I say as I start to walk away. I know exactly where C-Sec is considering I spent most of my time here on the Citadel trying to avoid being brought there.

"You try anything funny and I won't hesitate to kill you, West." Garrus adds in.

I give a huge grin. "I heard you the first time, Vakarian."

...

I walk through the various areas of the Citadel leading to the docking bay.

_Two years has changed me a lot. I used to be ignorant, but now I know the pains of loss, of sacrifice... and of life. I'm not the man I was two years prior, and I don't think I'll ever be him again. I don't know why I'm here. Whether it is really to help Shepard beat the Reapers like William had said, or maybe to find the real truth behind why my parents died. Hell, maybe fate just wants to fuck with me. I don't know. But I remember mom telling me a saying a while back..._

'It's not the destination that counts...'

I enter the docking bay to see the Normandy gleaming in all its glory. No words can describe how epically awesome it looks.

'It's the journey'

Oh, and what a journey it will be.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15: Welcome to the Normandy**

Captain David Anderson sat in the Human Embassy, overlooking some paperwork. Barely just an hour ago his protege and friend, Commander Angela Shepard had just been made humanities first Spectre by the Council, and sent on a mission to bring Saren Arterius in. He couldn't have been more proud of the kid, but still found himself somewhat jealous. Since Shepard had taken the Normandy he had be reduced to being Udina's lackey. He didn't like politics in general, but being Udina's asistant proved to be far worse than any fight he had ever witnessed during his long career.

All this aside, something else plauged the Captain's mind, Nathan West. The prodigal Assassin of Omega had only been on the scene for around two years but had already made quite the name for himself, gaining some publicity even here on the Citadel. But what was common knowledge among the people now, did not concern Anderson. It had been the first time he had personally seen the man in person, and he had to say that his reputation preceded him.

If Aria T' Loak did anything right, it was advertising. Because of her within the first year West had been on the circuit, his name was respected among those of marksman in the underworld earning him the title 'Assassin of Omega'. But still it hadn't been his looks that set Anderson off, it had been his personality.

He had seen many people in his lifetime, a whole lot of people, but he swore he had seen West's personality before. Sure, many people have similiar personalities, but West... his stature, his mannerisms, even his sense of dark humor were all so familiar.

Anderson paced around the balcony for what seemed like hours, "West... West... Nathan West... Wait, West?" The realization hit and he mentally smacked himself for not getting it earlier.

He made his way his terminal and quickly brought up the Alliance Military database. He brought up two files on names he hadn't heard in a long time. Two very good friends of his.

Lieutenant Jack West, and Operations Chief Amanda Sheradon.

* * *

><p><strong>One hour earlier, Normandy Docking Bay<strong>

"Decontamination in progress," the Normandy's VI says as I stand in the Normandy's decontamination bay. I feel the light flow over me as I fiddle around with the strap keeping my glasses fastened to my head. Since they fell off during that little incident with the krogan at Fist's warehouse, I decided to add it to the sunglasses. That way, I don't get the repeated questions about my eye which I dont want to answer.

The decontamination process ends and the door opens. I walk in and feel a fresh flow of air hit my face.

The first sound I hear is nonetheless the Normandy's wise-cracking pilot voiced by none other than Seth Green, Flight Lieutenant Jeff 'Joker' Moreau, who I hear saying, "You know, I thought Shepard was crazy for bringing a krogan on the ship, but an assassin? I think that beacon may have done something to her head."

I turn the corner into the spacious cockpit to see the pilot in mention talking to Kaidan. Kaidan, who immediately takes notice of me nudges at the pilot directed use fiddling with the many holographic controls used to control the Normandy.

"Good, seems like you've found your way to the Normandy, West" Kaidan speaks up as Joker turns his chair towards me.

"Yeah, I suppose Shepard told you I was coming?" I respond.

"She did. She also asked me to give you a tour of the Normandy since you'll be helping us out," Kaidan responded as Joker looked up at my aviators.

"Hey Shades, you do realize we're inside the ship right?" Joker gives me one of his signature sarcastic grins. "Why don't you take off the glasses, huh?"

"Uh how bout no." I say plainly

"I seriously doubt you could hit the side of barn with those on." Joker gives a slight chuckle.

"Funny" I feign a laugh back to the pilot, as I start to twirl my tomahawk idly in my fingers, "Care to test out your little theory?"

Joker's emotion of happiness immediately turns into one of discontent as he realizes that I just one uped him. I turn to Kaidan, who had gotten a laugh out of our little exchange. "Well it would seem like you've already met are pilot, Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau. But everyone just calls him Joker."

"I can see why." I respond giving the pilot a very noticeable grin.

"Oh, laugh it up Shades, just know that i'll get you eventually. I always do." Joker says as he turns his chair back to the Normandy's main controls. Well look at that, I just one uped Seth Green. That is definetely one for the bucket list, now if I could only beat Shepard at a drinking contest.

Kaidan turned and nodded to me to follow him into the CIC. Over the past two years there has been alot that has left me in total awe, but this... this takes the cake. I'm standing in the Normandy... the SSV Normandy, this is where the magic happens. This...this is well...damn.

"This is the CIC where all the navigation happens and where most the weapons systems are operated." Kaidan says as we walk past Pressly who is enveloped in his work. In fact, most of the crew doesn't even spare me a glance. They know that no one would be stupid enough to cause a ruckus on a military vessel filled with trained marines ready to kill you. I like the change. No politicians trying to save their own asses, just honorable marines doing their job. If my dad taught me one thing, it was that this was one of the most honest professions one could do in their life.

As we're about to head down the stairs, the Normandy's VI comes back to life.

"The Commanding Officer is aboard, XO Pressly stands relieved" it sounds off Shepard's arrival as well as confirming that this is Shepard's show now.

As the plot dictates and I suspect, Shepard's voice immedietaly comes over the intercom.

"This is Commander Shepard speaking, we have our orders, find Saren before he finds the Conduit. I wont lie to you crew, this mission isn't going to be easy. For to long our species has stood apart from the others, now its time for us to stand up and do our part for the rest of the galaxy, it's time to show them what humans are made of. Our enemy know were coming. When we go into the Traverse, Saren's followers will be ready for us, but we will be ready for them to. Humanity needs to do this, not just for are own sake, but for the sake of every other species in Citadel space. Saren must be stopped, and I promise you all, we will stop him."

I must have heard that speech over a million times, but I gotta say that was still epic as hell. Wait a second... how the hell did Ashley, Garrus, and Wrex get over by the galaxy map?

Kaidan and I walk back across the CIC to Shepard who has just walked in from the cockpit. "Great speech, Commander," praises the Staff Lieutenant who seems a little happier than before.

"Thanks, Alenko," replies Shepard as she turns to me, her gaze shooting straight to my shades. Yeah, and I see where this is going. "Okay West, I can accept the whole sunglasses thing when you're outside, but really?" the Commander exclaims putting her hand to her head in disgust. They seriously look that out of place? I get that its nearly 200 years in the future and that this is a different universe, but come on!

"Yeah, your helmsman seemed to notice the same thing. I'll just let you know right now that I'm not taking them off," I reply defiantly as I fold my arms up.

Shepard, who I notice doesn't seem in the mood to push this any further, sighs, "Alright, fine. As long as it doesn't hinder your ability to fight, I'll allow it. You still look stupid, I think." Wow, my own renegade option? I can't help but feel some pride at that even if it was an insult.

I'm going to have to assume now that she's a paragade since she seems to have a decent moral system but she still can say things so frankly. Damn, it's going to be harder for me to tell what she's going to do now. That'll be a problem, but there's nothing I can do with that now.

"Well stupid is what stupid does ma'am." I couldn't resist, I mean it may be cliche to say this, but Forrest Gump is one of my favorite movies of all time. Shepard looks at me, obviously not getting the reference, but surprisingly I get a little chuckle from Kaidan.

It almost humors me now how confused Shepard looks as she glances at us and says, "Okay, I'm obviously missing something here, so would one of you grace me with an explanation?" Shepard asks exasperatedly.

"Its from this old movie from 1994 called Forrest Gump," I say shifting my attention towards Kaidan. "I didn't expect that you'd pick it up, Lieutenant."

"Well, you know, I had a lot of spare time as a kid," Kaidan chuckles. I almost forgot Kaidan spent most his childhood on Jump Zero. Man, I feel sorry for the guy, stuck on some desolate rock outpost for all those years and for what? To get massive migraines due to some faulty L2 implant. _Kaidan, my friend, you and I are going to have some interesting talks_, I think to myself as he leads me away from Shepard and the rest in order to finish showing me around the very familiar ship.

...

With the tour finally complete, Kaidan shows me to my quarters. Oddly enough the Normandy has some extra additions to it not shown in the game. Kaidan's work space actually had a little kitchen area to it that resembles the one to be installed in the SR2 in the exact same space as well as a few couches, a terminal, and surprisingly enough a gaming system across from that. I can happily say that motion gaming is dead in this day and age. To that I say, thank you.

Along with that improvement, the two door that lead to the drive core from the cargo hold have been lengthened to hallways which both include some new additions. The hallway on the right if you heading to engineering has been converted to a gym/ firing range. how the hell they managed to fit all that on the Normandy, I'll never know, but it is a pretty impressive set up. Benches, treadmills, punching bags, holographic targets for the range... hell, I could have a field day in there.

Moving on to the left hallway, we have 4 small bedrooms set up for guess who? The ground team who aren't Alliance personnel. It doesn't bother me though since, a clean room, however small it may be, beats the cargo holds I've been hiding in for the past few months. So the rooms are of course pretty spartan: a twin size bed (I have no idea how thats going to work out for Wrex, given the fact he never leaves those boxes he leans on), a desk, a chair, and a personal terminal.

Kaidan excuses himself to go do whatever he does on that terminal on the crew deck, as I sit down on my bed. I don't really have much unpacking to do as I only have my weapons, my shield generator, and my clothes on my back, so I decide to check my terminal out. I'm not one to read my extranet messages often, so I decide to get that out of the way.

Spam, spam, junk, junk, Blasto movie advertisement, unknown sender. Ah, unknown sender sounds promising. I click the link and the message comes up.

_To: Mr. West_

_Assuming that you're not flying blindly, which I sincerely hope you're not, I assume that you joining Shepard means that the timeline has begun. Thanks for giving me a heads up on that. If you don't mind, do try keeping the timeline as stable as possible. Of course its the boss talking, but you get the point. So don't try anything stupid, we're watching you._

_Sincerely, William_

_P.S- Don't get yourself killed. You are worth a lot of money, and if you die we lose that money. The boss doesn't like losing money... if you get my drift._

Billy you are such a jackass. Hmm, but how could you be watching me now, Billy? Does the crew have a mole? Is the Normandy bugged? I'll have to look into that. Game on you yahg appeasing asshole!

Alright, what other mail do I have? More junk, more spam, Turian lotion ad (whoever thought of that is a genius), a message the Turian Military High Command, some more Blasto ads... Wait, what? A message from the Turian military? This can't be good.

_To: Nathan West_

_I hope I didn't alert you when this message was sent from Turian Military High Command, but that is how all our messages are sent. This is in fact a more personal matter. See, I'd like to thank for securing the safe return of both my daughter and my grand-daughter to here on Palaven. Garvak's death is a shock to all of us, and your unbridled friendship and helpfulness to my family in this situation has gained you mine and my family's respect despite your "unsavory" origins. Garvak was a good man, and a great soldier, and it was only through a very unfortunate series of events that he was on Omega in the first place. He had tried to avoid taking my daughter with him, but if I may use the human saying "Love makes you do crazy things" and Celia insisted._

_All in all, I must thank you again for taking the effort to book passage for my family back to Palaven. I have seen all the negative information that the media has said about you, but as a military man for most my life I can tell that you're a good man. If your travels ever bring you to Palaven, it would be my honor to meet with you in person._

_May the Spirits watch over you,_

_General Adrien Victus_

Wait a minute... Adrien Victus? As in the Adrien Victus who becomes the Turian Primarch in ME3? Holy shitcicles, I saved the future Primarch's daughter. Oh the wonders that would have done for Human-Turian relations. Too bad I'm a criminal and this matter will probably stay private. Still, if I manage to survive that long, that may be helpful.

My internal ramblings on about future plot points is cut short by my door swishing open. Exiting my messages, I turn to see Shepard walking in. "Heya Shep, what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" I ask, twisting my seat around in her direction.

"Just looking to see how all our new additions are settling in," the Commander replies as she motions to my bed, "Mind if I take a seat?"

I give her a warm smile, " Of course. This is your ship after all."

Our protagonist takes a seat on the bed, as I shift in the chair, "So Shep, just wondering, where we headed?" I ask expecting one of the three main plot missions.

"We're headed to the Artemis Tau cluster. The Council believes that Matriarch Benezia's daughter is on one of the planets in the system," she says resting her arms on her knees.

Looks like were headed to Therum then to pick up our Asari friend then. Can't wait to see how that turns out. I'll finally get a bearing on where Shepard's affections lie. I know Alenko may possibly have a thing for her, but it's still too early to tell, I'll just have to let this soap opera pan out.

"Interesting... got any guesses on where to search first?" I question the Commander.

Shepard puts her hand on her chin pondering my question, "Maybe the Sparta Cluster?" she mutters aloud.

Randomly generated negative buzzer noise. You, Shepard, are the weakest link. Goodbye. I nod faking as if I were thinking about the answer. "Hmmm, I was going to guess the Knossos Cluster, but I guess we will know eventually."

Shepard nods in agreement as I lean forward, "So I'm going to guess that you're not here just to check in with me, huh?" I ask with a wry smile.

Shepard leans forward as well as she answers, "I wanted to get to know a little more about you, since you're going to be here awhile."

Aw yeah! I get my own dialogue options. Better keep away from those origins for now, hell if I only have one of those circulating the galaxy by now. "What you don't listen to Westurland News?" I start sarcastically waving my hands in the air. "You never heard of all those stories about how I'm doped up on red sand all the time, killing innocent bystanders, and being a menace to the galaxy in general?" I say smiling.

Shepard gets quite a laugh from my ranting as she answers, "Well, that's media for you, isn't it?" she says calming her voice. "But all of that aside, I want to know if I can trust you on this ship."

I straighten up at this question and answer, feigning insult "Of course! Contrary to popular belief I'm not that bad of a guy, and I'm not that stupid either."

"But you're still a criminal, and that's what worries me," the Commander says with a concerned look on her face. Can't say I'm surprised by that answer. Crew safety is obviously a big concern to her and what not, but the security of her ship matters just as much.

I once again lean back into my chair and reply to her statement, saying, "I can tell you've never been to Omega before Commander, so let me tell you something: Everyone on that station is a criminal in some way, shape, or form. The rest of the galaxy may see me as a criminal, but on Omega anyone who's working with Aria T'Loak is considered a peacekeeper.".

Shepard pondering this comes back with, "I thought Aria T'Loak was a ganglord?"

I sigh as I say, "Yeah she is, but she's also what's keeping that rock in one piece. Without her the big three, the Blue Suns, the Eclipse, and the Blood Pack, would have blown the station to bits by now. They don't call her the "Queen of Omega" for nothing, you know." I shift in my seat to look directly at her. "But anyways, I won't harm your crew in any way. You have my word. Though if your helmsman gets a little too snarky with his jokes, I might have to stick my foot up his ass for good measure."

Shepard gives me a slight smirk. "I wouldn't blame you, Joker can get a little critical some times, but he does make up for it with his flying skills."

I nod in agreement to Shepard's statement. Priority: Punch Joker has begun.

"Anyway, I do have one more question to ask you, West," she mentions.

"Please call me Nathan. I'm not really into that whole formality buisness."

"Okay Nathan, do you know how to do weapon checks?" the Commander inquires.

Not seeing any implications in the question I answer, "Yeah I do."

"Then if you wouldn't mind helping the Chief check on the Normandy's firearms, that would be great."

Ohhh shit. Working with Ash on the ship as well as the ground? I don't want to do this but I can't really deny Shepard. Or rather, I'm not interested in doing so.

"Sure," I sigh out hesitantly, "But in what capacity will I be helping her out?"

Please Shepard don't screw me now.

"As her assistant."

Fuck!

...

So as per Shepard's orders, I am to report to my post within the day cycle. In layman's terms, submit to being Ash's lackey by the end of the day. Now I would love to go there right now, but I'll preoccupy myself by wandering the ship. Shep told me it'll be about 16 hours to the Artemis Tau system once we clear the relay, and if you add the time we'll have to 'search' for Therum, well I have a lot of time to kill.

Lets see what to do, what to do. Well Shepard _did_insist that I get myself some armor. I'm not one for being constricted by armor, but I'm also not one for being slaughtered by some geth because I'm only wearing a jacket, some pants, and a shield generator, so her point is well received.

I make my way to the requisitions officer over in the corner of the cargo hold. I can't help but feel that in some way, some how this guy is a drug dealer. I've been on Omega. I've seen this shit. I mean he just stands around in the corner here all day surrounded by all these boxes in the dark. I wouldn't think that a whole lot of people come to him during the day to "requisition" stuff, you know. Whatever, let's just say he's peddling red sand, and get on with our day.

I walk up to the req officer who immediately takes notice of me. "What can I do for you, sir?" he asks diligently.

"The Commander said I could come here to get some armor," I say looking around at all the different boxes.

He nods in response, "Yeah, I can order some from this terminal, but you would have to wait till the next time we docked at the Citadel to actually get it."

Well damn, I wish Shepard would have told me that. Looks like I'm shit out of luck.

"So until then, there isn't any other spare set of armor on this ship I could wear?" I ask the would be drug dealer.

"I wouldn't know" the req officer says. "Though I think if anyone would know it would be Staff Lieutenant Alenko." Okay, so I guess I'm visiting Kaidan again. "So would you still like to order some armor sir?" he asks, breaking me out of thought.

"Oh yeah sure." I say. "Can I just get some light onyx? Nothing too high end."

"Certainly. Anything specific?" he asks, typing something down on his console.

"Can I just make it black with dark blue lining?" I ask as I lean up on one of the boxes

"Sure, anything else?" the officer questions.

"No."

"I'd just like to add that since you're not Alliance personnel, you are permitted to customize your armor with designs and such," the man points out.

I really don't understand why someone would go out of the way to customize their armor that much. I mean color, yeah I get that, but I don't see why your armor has to look like the damn Mona Lisa. If you're wearing armor, you're going to most likely shot. The armor's going to get banged up, and you would have spent a helluva lot of money for nothing.

"No thank you, now how much is that going to cost me?" I ask him.

"That'll be... 3,000 credits," he says with some finality, touching his finger to the console.

Ouch. Now I see why I never bought anything in Mass Effect 1. Hell, I only have 5,000 credits anyway. I spent most my money getting Garvak's family off of Omega... and the rest I left on a few credit chit's on Omega. I do kinda hope Aria didn't sell my room out. Then again I did just ditch her gang to join Shepard. Oh man, returning to Omega is going to be a doosy ain't it?

"Sure," I say gingerly as I transfer said credits to his omni-tool.

"Great, sir. Your armor will be done by the next time we visit the Citadel. You should be able to pick it up at C-Sec."

I nod to him and turn around walking towards the elevator. "Damn inflation," I mutter under my breath.

I walk to the button to call the elevator, but just before I press it, I hear a hardy voice call my name. I turn around to see my krogan compatriot Wrex motioning me over.

"Nathan" the krogan says as I approach him.

"How you doing, Wrex?" I reply leaning up against the boxes next to him.

Wrex sighs completely ignoring my question, "You're still wearing that eyewear. There isn't any reason to aboard the ship, so why keep those stupid things on?" Seriously Wrex, didn't I go over at his with you already.

I sigh as I look to see if there is anyone within earshot. After confirming that there's no eavesdroppers, I turn back to the Battlemaster, "Wrex, have you ever had a memory you wanted to forget?" I ask him, knowing that the future leader of the krogan race has some skeletons in the closet.

Wrex looks down for a second and then back up at me. "What does that have to do with my question?" he shoots back.

I take another glance around the area to see that it's empty. "My synthetic eye brings up some bad memories I had awhile back. I don't want people bringing up my eye, because it brings up those memories," I explain, sighing.

"So you wear those 'glasses' to hide your eye?" Wrex asks to make sure he's got the facts straight.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner! Now to end this silly Q&A session.

"Yes Wrex, I do and if you wouldn't mind could you keep this between us?"

The krogan shifts his position on the boxes, "That's never going to work."

Oh great, Wrex is a damned therapist now. A krogan therapist... who would have fucking knew?

"Look, I really don't want to talk about this... just... just not right now, okay? Can you at least just keep it to yourself?"

Wrex gives me a grunt before replying, "I won't tell anyone. But I've lived for a long time, Nathan, and it doesn't matter how much of a quad you have, shit like keeping down your ghosts will eat you alive."

When the hell did Wrex become this sincere? I mean this would peak my interest, but not now. I seriously don't want to talk about this now. "Thank you Wrex" I say gingerly to the krogan as I turn around, effectively ending our conversation.

"Nathan," Wrex sends me off.

...

I enter the elevator with the intent of going up to the crew deck. The talk with Wrex is still stewing around in my head. Fucking shit Wrex... why did you have to bring that up? I don't want to remember that. I never want to remember that! It... it was my fault... it was all my fault. My fist collides with the side of the elevator.

Fuck, come on Nate. You cant deal with this now, not here. I somber up as the elevator reaches its destination. Just relax, no one needs to see you like this. I walk into the open area of the crew deck to see Kaidan working at his console.

The lieutenant takes notice of me, turning from his console to greet me, "Hey Mr. West, can I help you with something?"

"Lt. Alenko, I'm not one for formalities so if it's okay with you, you can just call me Nathan," I reply to the Sentinel. I'd really rather not be dealing with that whole thing _especially_now of all times.

He gives a little shrug. "Alright then, Nathan it is. What can I do you for?"

"Well, the Commander says that I need some armor, and since I can't purchase any since we've left the Citadel, I was told that you may know where to find a spare set until we touch back."

Kaidan ponders about this for a bit, striking a thinking pose, then looks at me, saying, "Yeah, I may know where a spare set is." He motions me to follow him.

I do so and we walk down the path of sleeping pods to where the primary weapons systems would be if we were on the SR2. There at the end of the hallway I see a door that I missed earlier. I have to say all these real life additions to the Normandy are a nice touch. Too bad Bioware didn't put them in. So we enter through the door to see that the room is another sleeping area for the crew of the Normandy, with the addition of some lockers, which I believe might hold the armor I require.

We walk to the lockers and while Kaidan opens it up I ask, "Hey Kaidan, if you don't mind me asking, did you ever watch any other vids except Forrest Gump from that era?"

I hear him chuckle to himself while he rustles through the locker. "Yeah, a few from the major titles from the late 1900's, some from the 2000's too. Didn't see you as much of a movie buff, much less for the classics."

He backs out of the locker carrying a simple suit of light onyx armor, as I respond, "I dabble. What were some of the ones you've seen?" I ask as he hands me the armor.

"Indiana Jones, Rocky, Rambo, Star Wars, stuff like that," the biotic replies as I try on the armor.

Kaidan, Kaidan, Kaidan. We are going to get along just fine my friend. Man, this armor is really fucking tight though. It's like wearing a wetsuit with metal plates on it. Definitely something I got to get used to.

"You have some good taste in movies, my friend. This armor is really tight!" I say, summarizing my entire internal thoughts.

The lieutenant gives me a smirk. "Yeah, you just need to break it in."

"For sure. You know we need to talk movies sometime. I still got to tell you a few of my favorites."

"I'll look forward to it, but in the mean time I need to get back to work."

I look at him while I take the armor back, "Oh, don't let me distract you then. See you later, Kaidan."

He gives me a nod as he exits. He's a good man... the reincarnation of Elvis, but still a good man. Now, if I can sneak back into my room, maybe I can grab a few winks before I'm forced into servitude by Ash.

...

_"Hey Dad, I'm heading over to Matt's for the night," I say as I walk into my parents' room_

_My dad is cleaning all his military stuff on his bed, but in his hand he's polishing some sort of metal plate that I've never seen before on his uniform. But before I can get a better look at it he puts it in his pocket and turns to me._

_"Alright" he says surprised by my sudden appearance._

_"Why are you cleaning all your military stuff, Dad? Do you have some veteran's thing to go to?" I ask stepping into the room farther._

_"No son, just thought tonight would be good night to do it," he replies with a small smile._

_I shrug it off. It's as good an excuse as any. "Okay. You sure you don't need me here tonight? I mean the dishes could still be done and what not."_

_"No worries, kiddo. just go have some fun tonight. You've earned it."_

_"Thanks, pop" I say as he wraps me into a warm hug._

_"Whatever happens to either of us one day son, know that I'm proud of you," he says quietly, hugging me for an unusually long amount of time._

_"I know dad, I'm proud of you too," I respond as he lets the embrace go._

_I turn around to exit the room, and as I do my dad says, "Don't forget to say bye to your mother too."_

_"I won't."_

...

My nap is suddenly interrupted with a sharp pain to my gut. I open my eyes to see Ashley Williams standing above me.

"Time for work, West!" she says as demanding as ever.

"Well what a unpleasant surprise, I'd invite you in myself Ms. Williams, but it would seem you've let yourself in. A knock on the door would have sufficed." I say as I sit up on my bed.

"I could have, but I thought socking you in the gut would have _sufficed_ ." The Gunnery Chief says with a saddistic grin we exit my room.

"And I thought we were getting along swimmingly _boss." _I say sarcastically

Ashley rolls her eyes at me as we enter the garage. Working in a video game, who would have fucking knew.


	16. Chapter 16

****_**a/n: Hello readers who have not been killed in the apocalypse that occurred yesterday, welcome to the next chapter of Recollection. My apologies for getting this out so late again, finals, work, life, Assassins Creed 3(don't ask me about the ending, because well, yeah no). This story is so very close to 100 reviews, really hoping that my wonderful readers will review and break that roof(hint, hint). Also, thanks to Macman6453 for giving me some constructive criticism, which I openly enjoy, and accept. Anywho, enjoy the chapter and i'll see you on the other side.  
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**Chapter 15: Geth, an Asari Scientist, and why never to give Shepard the wheel.**

Well I gotta say that i'm actually kind of excited to go down to Therum. Sure, i'll be put into a death defying situation, experience the effects of the infamous Mako physics, and get to meet Liara for the first time, but mainly now because I get to leave the hell that is working the she-witch known as Ashley Williams. I know how to clean a gun all well and good, but I swear she gives me some of the most bullshit excuses on why the rifles I cleaned needed to be cleaned again. Damn torture I tell you, which now that I think about it was her goal most likely. But now I get to go on a mission which will last me a few hours, and give me a viable excuse for ignoring that tyrannical slave driver afterwards.

With my armor all nice and snug, I join Shepard who is standing by the mako with Kaidan and Tali. Great, no one that hates me, I think. Now if I could hold back from babbling like an idiot near Tali, this mission will go quite smoothly. Not that babbling like an idiot implies any certain feeling towards the quarian that I obviously don't have, because I don't. I don't have any feelings for Tali...with her body so snug in...that exosuit. Damn it Nathan focus, mind out of the gutter.

"Looks like you guessed right Nathan." announces the Commander referring to our prior conversation.

"What can I say...," I reply trying to avoid eye contact with Tali, "I have a knack for these things."

"Let's hope your "knack" can help us find our asari down there then." Kaidan breaks in, looking at me.

"What is a 'knack'?" says the feminine voice beside me that i'm desperately not trying to look at. Come on Nate be professional, you have to look at her. Besides you've been in way shittier situations than this; remember when you captured and interrogated by the Eclipse. Yeah I can do this, just act normal, and act like you've never watched the quarian romance scenes from Fleet and Flotilla. Gosh, I need to catch up on that, but back to the task at hand.

"A knack is... uhhh." I freeze up as I look at the young quarian. Fucking hell brain work damn you work.

"Having a knack at something is a human expression meaning that your good at it."Kaidan saves me, explaining the word to Tali.

"Ohh... I understand." the engineer responds. Smooth Nathan, really smooth.

Wanting to divert the conversation, I turn to Shepard, "Hey Shep, you mind if I ask you something?"

She shrugs replying, "Shoot."

"Ok, not trying to go against your judgment or anything but why did you insist on giving me the duty of weapons checks with the Chief, given the fact that she hates my guts and enjoys torturing me." I say resting my hand on my chin.

"You know I can hear you from right here!" exclaims the witches voice from across the garage.

"Oh I am well aware Boss, I am well aware." I reply yelling back to her, while switching my gaze back to Shepard. "So...?"

The adept leans against the Mako's shell, crossing her arms, "Well to be blunt, your occupation relies heavily on your knowledge of weapons, so put two and two together that you'd make a good enough guy to check weapons." Shepard starts, as I take in what I think is a compliment, " But for all intensive purposes these trips can get extremely long and boring, and the extranet can only go so far. The two of you lovebirds arguing, I hate to say, is pretty entertaining."

"Well...Damn!" I say still cringing at the mere notion of the word lovebirds, and what Shepard's idea of entertainment is. There is definitely a bit of renegade inside of her.

"Commander, ETA to Therum is 5 minutes." Jokers voice echoes over the intercom.

Shepard springs to life opening the door to the Mako. "Ok people let's do this. Kaidan your on navigation, Nathan your in charge of the turret, if we have any hostiles out there, you know what to do, Tali you just sit along for the ride, and I call driver."

I faintly hear Kaidan murmur "Oh lord." as we enter the vehicle, which I must add looks pretty cool on the inside. The gunner's seat is elevated from the other's and secluded in the turret. Boyish me is tingling at the fact that I actually get to shoot this thing. Nevertheless I take my seat and realize that the controls to this behemoths guns is just a joystick with a fire button on it. Oh yes, this will be fun.

Joker gives us the two minute warning and I hear the door to the garage open up. I not one for being afraid of heights, but the fact that even Kaidan looks a little tense means this might not be good. I deduced from the brief glance that I gave to Tali, that from her relaxed posture she is oblivious to what's about to happen.

I buckle in my seatbelt as I feel the Mako slowly roll backwards toward the door.

"Commander, shouldn't Joker being lowering the ship right about now?" Tali chimes in, seemingly worried. Without looking at her, I feel Shepard's grin growing now.

"Oh Tali, the Normandy's low enough, trust me." Shepard replies as the Mako approaches the edge.

"But the scan's show were at least 1000 feet above the surface?" Tali replies, her tone somewhat panicked now. I look to Kaidan who is now grasping his safety harness for dear life. Following the idea, I do the same, as I hear Joker over the intercom again.

"Shepard your clear for the drop."

"Exactly." I hear the Commander say to Tali as the planets gravity takes effect as we fall off the Normandy.

"Keelah!" Tali yells as we fall into the abyss.

...

"Shepard, I pummeled that Geth with enough lead to last a lifetime, do you really feel the need to have to run it over...twice!" I yell to the Commander who is seemingly enjoying making said geth armature into roadkill.

"You can never be to sure West." the adept replies, a smile evident on her face. I understand these are synthetics and all but have some common decency.

"I'm starting to wonder who's really the murderer here." I murmur to myself, as the continued shaking of the mako makes it very difficult to line up the turrets guns. I know the mako has the control of a drunken bull, but I can't help feeling that our driver is partially responsible for this "driving". How in the hell you can flip a tank in a 360 due to a relatively small bump in the ground is beyond me, all I know is that it is making shooting particularly difficult.

"Damn Nathan, I thought you were a decent shot?" Shepard says breaking another awkward silence within our group.

I smirk at our crazed leader, " Given that we aren't treating this tank like a damn sports car, the geth would be dead already."

Shepard feigns a pout as she replies, "If your trying to put the blame on my driving skills, I will let you know that I am an excellent driver." she finishes nodding to Kaidan. "The Lieutenant can vouch for that, isn't that right Alenko?"

"Yes ma'am." I hear Kaidan answer with just an hint of doubt in his voice. Note to self, ask Kaidan about Shepard's driving later.

...

One gate and around 100 geth roadkill later, we finally reach that convenient environmental road block, and have to "unfortunately" leave the mako behind. I have been on many a rollercoaster before, and never before have I felt the need to barf as much as I need to right now. Seriously, either the people who developed the mako were up to their heads in red sand or Shepard is the worst driver in the galaxy; my bet is going to the latter. Enough about my jumbled up guts though, it's time to kill some more geth and save our asari friend _on foot_.

Exiting the mako, I see that Kaidan and Tali have had as much fun as I did on that trip, and like me keep their "excitement" held in, in front of the Commander. I pull my Avenger I sniper rifle off the magnetic strip on my back, listening to it extend to its full capacity. Similarly to me, the rest of the squad does the same; Kaidan pulls out a pistol, Tali with her shotgun, and Shepard with an even bigger pistol. With a pat on the shoulder, our driving challenged protagonist signals me to take point up the hill.

You know, either I somehow swept any memory of how many enemies come at you in the game at a time, or fate has decided to increase the difficulty of my life ten fold, take your pick. We've come to that little canyon I thought had maybe 6, maybe 7 geth in it, but no, we got a good 25 geth. No wait, a good 24, yeah 24 geth. I just clipped off one of their heads with a well placed sniper round.

Anywho, our little squad strategy is as follows, Tali fries the geth with tech, Shepard lifts the rustbuckets with her crazy biotic skill, and the squad pounds a whole shit load of lead into the flashlight heads like there's no tomorrow. Yeah, this plan works pretty well, the geth are getting a few well placed shots off, but our shields are taking care of that. On a secondary note I think the fuckers knicked me in the shoulder, nothing to serious, especially with medi-gel: that stuff was worth its weight in gold back on Omega, let me tell you.

A few minutes pass as our biotic god of a commander lifts the last of these suckers up with her biotics, to meet a timely end via a sniper round to its flashlight face from yours truly. Passing through the canyon, now occupied with the fried machines, Shepard speaks up.

"I'll be damned, you can actually shoot straight in those things West." she says snickering as we climb the slope of the canyon now.

I give a slight smile, "Well they didn't call me the Assassin of Omega for nothing."

"Is that smartassness i'm sensing. I'll make sure to note that in the report I give to the Alliance when I turn you in to them after we catch Saren." the biotic says plainly.

Uhhhhhh, that's bad. I can safely say was a renegade trigger response. I see Shepard turn her head at me, grinning cheek to cheek. "That's what I thought smartass." Ok, note to self, don't do that ever again. Also, get on her good side so she doesn't arrest me in the near future. I can't shoot my way out of an alliance prison.

"There's the facility up ahead." Kaidan says again breaking me out of an awkward situation.

"Good let's move up." replies the Commander.

As we move up, I recall that in-game this was a cutscene, and that spidey-geth should be crawling on that walkway when we enter. I concentrate on said walkway, but am cut off by the view of a luscious pair of hips. Knock it off eyes, we have geth killing to do.

I refocus on the walkway to see spidey-geth come out right on cue. With the precision I have come very accustomed to, I send the shot, splattering spidey-geth all over the floor of that walkway; Emma Stone is mine you son of a bitch. As my head exits its realm of dirty marvel fantasies, I am reminded of the big geth dropship flying in right now. If i'm correct, and this enemy multiplier thing is true, this is going to get really messy, really fast.

...

I'm starting to really hate the geth right now, I know their reaper controlled and everything right now, but still their a pain in the ass; except Legion though, Legion is cool. So yeah the place is swarming with geth, the centerpiece of the attack being the armature, or as Shepard calls it "The Big One", which is constantly shooting canon shots at us. Its funny really, i've never caught this until now, but Therum kind of looks like hell; you know lava pools, barren landscape, the works, hell all you need is the damned devil.

The blunt force of the armature canon shot hits our cover again as I pop a few rounds of my Razer VII pistol into a geth's "stomach" killing the thing. I look over at the rest of the squad who is also having difficulty eliminating the geth due to the armature's covering fire.

"Anyone got a clue on how to kill that thing?" Shepard reiterates my thoughts.

"I can only take down the armature's shields long enough to get a few shots off." Tali says typing away at her omni-tool.

"I don't think bullets are enough to bring that thing down." the lieutenant answers using a combination of pistol and biotics to bring a geth sniper down.

"Alenko's right, we need explosives, does anyone have any grenades left?" the Commander questions as she rips another geth apart with her biotics.

"No"

"Negative"

"Nada"

A few seconds fly by, when an idea hits me.

"It may just be those geth lightbulbs getting to me, but I think I may have an idea." I say turning to Shepard. "Can you make sure that big fucker doesn't nail me for about 5 seconds."

Shepard nods and herself and Kaidan start blindly firing at the armature to draw its attention. I pull out my bow and pick out one of the explosive arrows from my quiver. Peeking around the corner, I wait for the suckers shields to flicker off. They do after a few seconds, with Tali giving me a auditory cue as well. I round the corner as the armature's about to fire another shot, and fire the arrow at the ground next to it's leg. The arrow swiftly leaves the bow hitting its intended target to the letter. Within a second of its landing, the explosive with the equivalent power of 3 grenades goes off. The blast disintegrates the armature's leg causing it to go unbalanced and fall forward, making it shot hit right in front of it, finishing the geth off.

"And that people, is how you roast a geth." I say as the rest of the squad makes quick work of the few remaining geth.

Shepard looks at me with her now trademark smile, "Remind me to get one of those, will ya."

...

The inside of the facility has Shepard and Tali taking point while Kaidan and I hold the rear. As we make our way through the cavernous area, I fell the need to ask Kaidan something.

"Hey Kaidan, tell it to me straight, is it the mako, or is it Shepard?" I ask with a flat tone.

I see the LT make sure the Commander is out of earshot before turning back to me, "Shepard barely passed the Alliance driving course, she is probably the worst driver this side of the galaxy."

"Wow, that bad?" I question the sentinel again.

"Don't get me wrong, Angela is a great leader" Kaidan says addressing the adept by her first name, "She knows how to push people under her command hard but at the end of the day win them over with her personality, but put her at the helm of any vehicle in Citadel space, you have yourself a menace to society."

Another note to self, skip anything related to Shep driving the mako, and on yet another note; calling your Commander by her first name, and praising her. Kaidan, my friend, I believe your facade is starting to break down, loverboy. My internal ramblings are interrupted by both our omni-tools coming to life.

"Alenko, West, gets yourselves down here, we've found the Matriarch's daughter." the biotic says with her usual tenacity.

Kaidan and I jump down from the broken platform connected to the elevator, which even though is 50,000 years old, is sadly faster than the one on the Normandy. We land to see Shepard and Tali next the blue force field talking to a restrained Smurfette, whoops I mean Liara.

"We just need to figure some way past this energy field." Shepard says as I approach the field revealing canon romance option number 2. Kaidan you got some competition in the form of this asari scientist, let the games begin.

"It's a prothean barrier current, I knew it would keep me safe from the geth. There is a control in here that should deactivate this thing. You'll have to find some way past the barrier curtain, that's the tricky part. The defenses cannot be shut off from the outside, I don't know how you'll get in here. Be careful, there is a krogan with the geth, they've been trying different ways to get past the barrier." the socially awkward scientist finishes her tirade.

Our group turns around and are immediately and timely greeted with geth fire. After fighting big bad armature outside these toasters are a piece of cake. Total geth kills, 3; 2 shot to death, and one unfortunate fucker now residing without a head thanks to my tomahawk.

It doesn't take long for Shep to figure that our ticket is the large mining laser conveniently placed to shoot under the containment field. With a quick nod, Shepard signals Tali to make quick work hacking the thing. The hacking takes maybe a minute as the once quiet cave environment is replaced with the sound of laser cutting through rock.

The laser had done its job, making a decent hole for us to use as well as de-stabilize the whole obvious worries aside, we take the once again, very conveniently placed elevator up to where Liara is.

"Oh, how did you get in here, I didn't think there was any way past the barrier?" the asari says per canon.

"We have to get you out of here before more geth arrive." Shepard says taking the direct approach.

"Yes, your right. I've seen enough of this place to last a life time." Liara says turning her head towards the console "That console should deactivate the containment field."

Shepard walks to the console, pushing a few buttons which in turn releases Liara. Wasn't this a prothean containment field, so wouldn't the console be in prothean? Good ol' Shep can't read prothean until she gets the cipher. Weird shit man, weird shit.

Our group now including our asari scientist friend enters the elevator. Liara thanks us and following canon again asks about Benezia's involvement with Saren. This in turn warrants a response from Kaidan, and well, now i'm bored, and hungry. Note to self, eat after this is all done. My impending boredom is interrupted by a string of large crashing noises. Cue the cavern starting to collapse.

"Well that doesn't sound good." I say expressing my concern.

"These ruins are not stable, that mining laser must have triggered a seismic event. We have to move the whole place is caving in." replies the asari.

"Joker,get the Normandy airborne, and lock on to my signal. On the double mister." Our Commanding Officer radios.

"Aye, aye Commander. Secure and away, ETA 8 minutes." the physical representation of Seth Green replies.

"Not that much margin for error" comments Kaidan.

"Keelah, this isn't good." Tali adds in

"I swear if I die, he's getting a ghost foot up his ass." I sigh.

With that the elevator rises and in no time at all were at the designated floor. As the platform stops A krogan warlord and a shit load of geth enter through the door. Whoopty do.

"Surrender or don't. That would make it more fun." the lizard man says with a usual krogan tenacity.

"In case you didn't notice, this place is falling apart." Shepard snaps back at the krogan.

"Exhilarating isn't it. Thank you for getting rid of those energy fields for us. Hand the doctor over." the krogan replies per canon.

"Whatever it is you want, you are not getting it from me." Liara speaks up this time with a tinge of anger in her voice.

"She'll stay with us, thanks" Shep adds sarcastically waving her hand at the krogan.

"Not an option. Saren wants her, a he always gets what he wants."

Ok enough with this canon nonsense. "Oh does he now, well I guess he'll be disappointed with you then." I say pointing my pistol straight at the krogan.

"Nathan West, your reputation precedes you. I will find joy in taking your life." the krogan says mockingly right as they start to attack us. Why, why does everyone seem to know me. Fuck this, come here you fucker.

Everybody spreads out across the room as the fight ensues. I quickly rush to the left , vaulting behind the cover of one of the pillars. One of the geth ignorantly rounds the corner of said pillar, and receives my tomahawk to its neck, beheading it. I move out of the cover firing some pot shots at the krogan who is shadowing me from the opposite side of the room. As expected, the shots do minimal damage to the battlemasters shields. I fall into cover behind another pillar just long enough to see Shepard biotically launch another one of the geth into a wall. As I turn, I see that piece of shit krogan closing the gap with me. This whole situation really reminds me of how much I tried avoiding running and gunning like this on Omega. I really have to work on this whole "open combat" thing.

The krogan starts taking pot shots at me with his shotgun, which I return with some blind fire from my pistol. We eventually close the distance, and from my previous experiences with fighting krogan I immediately go to knock the gun out of his hands. But the krogan instantly picks up on the idea and before I can knock the gun completely out of his hands fires off one last shot, ripping through my shields and scraping my left shoulder. In my moment of shock due to the pain, the krogan takes advantage and knock my weapons out of my hands with a punch to the gut. Before he makes his next move though, I roll out of the way, grabbing my tomahawk as well. Then, with the a technique I picked up from Thane, I plunge my tomahawk into the exposed back of the battlemaster's knee causing him to instinctively fall to his knees. Finally, with the honed precision I have become accustomed to, I quick stand up and use the momentum from my turn to plunge my weapon into his skull.

As with anytime the fighting gets this intense, it takes about a minute for the adrenaline to wear off, and for me to realize that the battle is over. I look to see Shepard with her biotics still flared, Kaidan motioning Liara up the tunnel, and Tali who is looking at me for some odd reason.

"Your hurt." she says motioning to my left shoulder. With that I realize that my shoulder is to an extent really fucked up, and is hurting very much.

"I'll live, but right now I think we have more pressing concerns. Let's get out of here." I reply picking my pistol up and then motioning the quarian towards the tunnel.

"Everybody move" Shepard screams at us as we exit the tunnel, top the friendly sight of the Normandy waiting for us.

The group runs up the platforms to the ship as it looks like all hell is breaking loose on Therum. I feel my shoulder still trickling blood from the parts of the wound not hit by the medi-gel. Shepard boards the Normandy's last, and as she does I hear the core rev up and the ship fly into orbit. That is one mission down, and if that was any allusion of what's to come, then let me just say this is going to be one hell of a ride.

_**a/n: Ok, ok, ok before anyone calls Nathan a pervert, guys think for a second, dem hips, you know you wouldn't be able not to stare. Anywho, happy holidays, stay safe, and have a merry masseffectsmas. Now if you'll excuse me, Nathan has a gallon of eggnog to drink.**_


End file.
